,1  m  mmu^iciti  ^, 

PRINCETON,    N.    J. 

- — :: cii^ . -z 

BX  9070  .S7  1872 
Stanley,  Arthur  Penrhyn, 

1815-1881. 
Lectures  on  the  history  of 
^^'^^'- the  Church  of  Scotland 


4*1 ' 


"^=*.» 


THE 


CHURCH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


By  the  same  Author, 


Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Jewish  Church. 
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LECTURES  ON  THE  HISTORY 


CHURCH  or  SCOTLAND, 


DELIVERED  IN  EDINBURGH  IN  1872. 


ARTHUR  PENRHYN  STANLEY,  D.  D. 

DEAN   OF   WESTMINSTER, 
COBRESPONDIMQ    MEMBER    OF    THE    INSTTTCTE    OF    FBANOK. 


NEW    YORK: 
SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG,  AND  COMPANY, 

SDCCESSORS   TO 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER  AND  COMPANY. 

1872. 


KIVERSIDE,    CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED    AND    PRINTED    BY 

H.    O.   HOUGHTON  AND   COMPANY. 


•^.  ^i.'': 


PREFACE. 


I  HAVE  prefixed  to  these  Lectures  a  Sermon  preached  in 
Old  Greyfriars'  Church  at  the  kind  invitation  of  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Wallace,  Minister  of  the  Parish,  on  January  7,  1872. 
It  indicates  the  spirit  in  which  I  would  wish  the  subject 
in  the  Lectures  to  be  approached,  and  on  that  account 
seemed  a  not  unfitting  introduction. 

I  have  also  wished  to  retain  it  as  a  record  of  the  revival 
of  a  custom  which  had  for  a  considerable  period  fallen 
into  disuse,  but  which  once  was  well  recognized  both  in  the 
Church  of  England  and  the  Church  of  Scotland.  It  had 
long  been  my  intention  to  avail  myself  of  the  liberty  of 
preaching  m  the  sister  Church,  which  the  law  of  both 
Churches  allows,  and  had  only  waited  till  a  fitting  oppor- 
tunity occurred.  It  is  sufficient  in  illustration  of  this  lib- 
erty, to  refer  to  the  interesting  passage  at  the  close  of  the 
twentieth  edition  of  Dean  Ramsay's  "  Reminiscences  of 
Scottish  Life,"  as  regards  the  practice  and  feeling  at  the 
beginning  of  this  century ;  to  Bishop  Swing's  admirable 
vindication  of  the  principle  in  the  "  Sei-mon  on  Christmas- 
time," intended  to  have  been  preached  before  the  Univer- 
sity of  Glasgow  ;  and  to  Principal  Tulloch's  able  essay  on 
the  "  English  and  Scottish  Churches  "  in  the  "  Contempo- 
rary Review,"  in  December,  1871.  That  such  an  event 
should  have  taken  place  without  remonstrance  or  opposition 
in  the  Church  of  Scotland  is  a  decisive  proof  of  the  fiber- 


Vi  PREFACE. 

ality  which,  as  I  have  remarked  in  the  closing  Lecture,  is 
characteristic  of  its  present  condition. 

The  Lectures  are  printed  as  nearly  as  possible  in  their 
original  state.  Some  inaccuracies  of  detail  have  been  cor- 
rected, some  ambiguities  removed,  and  some  passages  which 
had  been  omitted  for  the  sake  of  brevity  have  been  re- 
tained. 

I  would  venture  here  to  repeat  what  was,  in  fact,  implied 
throughout  the  Lectures,  that  they  do  not  profess  to  give 
anything  like  a  complete  account  of  the  history  of  the  Scot- 
tish Church.  Some  of  its  most  conspicuous  personages, 
such  as  John  Knox  and  Andrew  Melville ;  some  of  its  most 
conspicuous  features,  such  as  its  system  of  education  and  of 
discipline  ;  some  of  its  most  conspicuous  events,  the  General 
Assembly  of  1638,  and  the  Disruption  of  1843,  —  have  been 
passed  over,  partly  as  sufficiently  well  known,  partly  for 
other  reasons  equally  obvious. 

I  will  add  that  I  have  also,  on  principle,  abstained  from 
entering  into  the  details  of  the  several  controversies  in 
which  the  Church  of  Scotland  has  been  at  different  times 
involved.  The  particular  points  at  issue  between  the  Burgh- 
ers and  the  Anti-burghers,  between  the  Secession,  the  Re- 
Uef,  and  the  Free  Church,  between  the  Moderates  and 
Populars,  the  Collegers,  the  Usagers,  the  Unionists  and 
Anti-unionists,  could  only  have  been  set  forth  by  a  minute 
investigation  and  exposition  which  would  have  diverted  the 
attention  from  the  general  features  of  interest  common  to  aD 
of  these  divisions. 

I  have  in  my  first  Lecture  indicated  that  the  copiousness 
of  the  sources  of  Scottish  ecclesiastical  history,  as  well  as 
the  excellent  modern  works  on  the  subject,  render  any 
lengthened  nan-ative  unnecessary.  I  do  not  pretend  to  more 
than  a  superficial   knowledge  of  the  vast   literature  which 


PREFACE.  Vii 

covers  this  field.  But  it  may  be  convenient  to  give  a  brief 
summary  of  the  chief  works  tliat  can  with  advantage  be 
consulted. 

For  the  general  history,  I  would  specially  name  the  com- 
pendious, but  thoroughly  Hberal  and  well-digested  "  Church 
History  of  Scotland,"  from  a  Presbyterian  point  of  view,  in 
two  volumes,  by  the  Rev.  John  Cunningham,  Mmister  of 
Crieff ;  and  the  exact  and  candid  "  Ecclesiastical  History 
of  Scotland,"  from  an  Episcopalian  point  of  view,  in  four 
volumes,  by  Mr.  George  Grub  ;  also  the  numerous  notices  of 
ecclesiastical  affairs  in  Mr.  Burton's  elaborate  "  History  of 
Scotland  ;  "  and  the  lucid  exposition  of  all  legal  questions 
in  Mr.  Taylor  Innes's  admirable  work  on  the  "  Law  of 
Creeds  in  Scotland." 

For  the  early  Celtic  period  I  would  refer  to  Mr.  Stu- 
art's "  Sculptured  Stones  of  Scotland,"  and  "  The  Book  of 
Deer ;  "  to  Dr.  Reeves's  edition  of  Adamnan's  "  Life  of  Co- 
lumba  ;  "  to  Innes's  "  Early  History  of  Scotland  ;  "  and  to 
the  modem  reproduction  of  some  of  the  chief  characters  in 
Montalembert's  "  Monks  of  the  West."  To  these,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  will  be  shortly  added  Bishop  Forbes's  "  Kalen- 
dar  of  the  Lives  of  the  early  Scottish  Saints." 

For  the  medijeval  period,  I  must  repeat  my  deep  obliga- 
tions to  the  lamented  Joseph  Robertson,  which  began  from 
the  moment  when  I  first  became  acquainted  with  him  —  of 
which  none  can  have  any  adequate  notion  but  those  who  had 
the  privilege  of  conversing  with  him,  but  of  which  perma- 
nent traces  are  left  in  the  singularly  interesting  "  Essay  on 
Scottish  Abbeys  and  Cathedrals,"  in  the  eighty-fifth  vol- 
ume of  the  "  Quarterly  Review,"  and  in  the  masterly  Pref- 
ace to  the  "  Statuta  Ecclesise  Scotianae."  I  would  also 
name  the  "  Sketches  of  Early  Scottish  History,"  by  Mr. 
Cosmo  Innes. 


VI 11  PREFACE. 

For  the  period  of  the  Reformation,  it  is  enough  to  men- 
tion the  "  History  of  the  Reformation,"  by  John  Knox  him- 
self ;  the  "  Lives  of  John  Knox  and  Andrew  Melville,"  by 
Dr.  M'Crie  ;  the  chapters  relating  to  it  in  Fronde's  "  History'" 
of  England,"  and  the  Lectures  on  that  and  the  succeeding 
period  by  Principal  Lee. 

For  the  period  of  the  great  struggle  with  the  English 
State  and  hierarchy  I  would  indicate  Baillie's  "  Letters  ;  " 
Wodrow's  "  History  "  and  "  Analecta  ;  "  the  various  Lives 
of  Rutherford,  Claverhouse,  and  Leighton,  with  the  notices 
in  Burnet's  "  Own  Time,"  and  Macaulay's  "  History  of 
England." 

For  the  period  of  the  eighteenth  century,  I  would  spe- 
cially refer  to  the  Lives  of  Robertson  and  Blair,  Sir  H. 
Moncrieff  Wellwood's  "  Life  of  Dr.  John  Erskme,"  Burton's 
"  Life  of  David  Hume,"  the  Autobiographies  of  Dr.  Carlyle, 
and  Dr.  Somerville,  and  of  Thomas  Boston,  and  the  histories 
of  the  various  secessions. 

For  the  events  near  to  our  ovni  time,  it  may  perhaps 
suffice  to  mention  Dr.  Hanna's  "  Life  of  Chalmers,"  Mr. 
Herbert  Story's  Lives  of  "  Story  of  Rosneath "  and  of 
"  Robert  Lee ; "  and  Mrs.  Oliphant's  "  Life  of  Edward 
Irving."  To  name  the  pamphlets  and  works  relating  to  the 
Disruption  of  1843  would  be  in  itself  a  catalogue. 

Of  one  other  source  of  illustration  I  have  freely  availed 
myself,  because  in  no  other  way  could  I  so  bring  home  the 
subject  to  the  intelligence  both  of  Englishmen  and  of  Scots- 
men, namely,  the  allusions  to  Scottish  ecclesiastical  history 
in  the  romances  of  "  The  Monastery,"  "  The  Abbot," 
"  The  Legend  of  Montrose,"  "  Old  Mortality,"  "  The 
Heart  of  Mid-Lothian,"  "  Redgauntlet,"  "  The  Antiquary," 
"  Waverley,"  and  "  Guy  Maimering."  In  no  other  like 
works  of  genius  are  the  references  to  the  religious  feehngs 


PREFACE.  ix 

of  the  author's  country  so  frequent ;  in  none  other  is  a 
knowledge  of  those  feelings  so  necessary  for  a  due  under- 
standing of  the  humor,  the  argument,  and  the  characters 
that  are  produced. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  here  repeat  what  in  substance  I 
have  elsewhere  expressed,  my  regret  if  in  any  untoward  re- 
mark I  have  wounded  feelings  which  I  would  fain  conciliate, 
not  only  from  their  intrinsic  claim  on  my  regard,  but  also 
from  the  kiyid  indulgence  I  have  received  in  Scotland  even 
amongst  the  sections  of  the  Church  from  which  I  most 
widely  differ.  If  any  such  expressions  still  remain,  I  must 
plead  in  their  behalf  that  in  treading  so  fiery  a  soil  it  was 
almost  impossible  not  to  awaken  some  slumbering  ashes; 
and  that  in  so  complex  and  interesting  a  subject  it  would 
have  indicated  a  want  of  self-respect,  and  of  respect  for 
those  whom  I  was  addressing,  if  I  had  not  touched,  when 
required  by  the  necessities  of  my  argument,  on  the  faults 
as  well  as  on  the  virtues  of  the  country  in  which  I  had  the 
honor  to  be  so  generously  welcomed ;  always  with  the  en- 
deavor (according  to  the  rule  laid  down  in  the  Address  by 
which  these  Lectures  are  prefaced)  to  understand  the  truth 
which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  error,  and  to  make  the  best 
of  whatever  is  admirable  even  in  those  from  whom  we  are 
in  other  points  the  most  divided. 


^L 


CONTENTS. 


«  THE  ELEVENTH  COMMANDMENT." 

PAei 

Tbs  Eleventh  Commandment  of  the  World         ....  3 

The  Eleventh  Commandment  of  the  Churches        ...  3 

The  Eleventh  Commandment  of  Christianity       ....  4-6 

I.  Its  original  meaning             .......  7-11 

n.  Its  application  to  the  Divisions  of  Churches          .        .        .  12-16 

1.  Better  mutual  appreciation            ....  18 

2.  Larger  and  deeper  theology 14 

3.  Union  for  great  objects          .....  16 
Greyfriars'  Church       .........  17 


LECTURE  L 

THE   CELTIC,  THE  MEDIEVAL,  AND    THE   EPISCOPAL  CHURCHES. 

Plan  of  the  Lectures 21-23 

I.     The  Celtic  Church 24 

The  abbatial  system 25 

The  vitality  of  the  early  saints           ....  26 

St.  Ninian               28 

St.  Serf ■        .         .  28 

St.  Mungo 29 

St.  Columba  and  lona         ......  30-36 

Miraculous  stories  of  earlier  and  later  Scottish  saints    .  37 

Reverence  for  sacramental  ordinances        ...  39 

H.     The  Mediaeval  Church 41 

Its  extraneous  origin 41 

St.  Margaret  and  St.  David 43 

Rise  of  St.  Andrew's  .......  45 

Fall  of  the  Mediaeval  Episcopacy 46 

III.     Tlie  modern  Episcopal  Church 47 

Its  English  origin 47 


xu 


CONTENTS. 


Its  relations  to  Presbyterianism           .... 
Its  state  of  persecution 

1.  Its  violent  divisions 

2.  Its  antagonism  to  the  English  Church  and  State 

3.  Its  romantic  character 

Lord  Pitsligo 

Bishop  Jolly 

Its  present  miss'on 


PAOB 

48 
51-57 
52 
53 
54 
58 
58 
59 


LECTURE  II. 

THE   CHURCH   OF    SCOTLAND,   THE    COVENANT,    AND    THE    SECEDING 
CHURCHES. 


The  meaning  of  the  name  "  The  Church  of  Scotland  " 

Its  Unity  and  its  Divisions  how  to  be  explained 
I.  National  Independence     .... 


U. 


UI. 


1.  Negative  character 

2.  Spiritual  independence 

Rejection  of  the  English  Liturgy 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant 

3.  Minuteness  of  theological  divisions 

Whitefield  and  the  Seceders  . 
Results       ....... 

1.  Fervid  devotion 

2.  Judaic  theology      .... 

3.  Poverty  of  general  theology 

4.  Moral  inconsistency 

Lord  Crawford  and  Lord  Grange  . 
Higher  religious  excellence 
Samuel  Rutherford 


65-67 
68,  69 
70-91 
74 
77 
80 
84 
86 
89 
92 
92 
95 
97 
98 
98 
99 
100-106 


LECTURE  m. 

THE    MODERATION   OF    THE    CHURCH    OF    SCOTLAND. 

Reply  to  Mr.  Buckle Ill 

Moderation  in  the  age  of  the  Reformation    .        .        .        .  112-113 

Buchanan 112 

Regent  Murray 112 

John  Knox •         .         .  113 

Hugh  Rose  of  Kilravoch        .        .        .        .                 .  lu 

Early  Erastianism 114 


CONTENTS.  Xiii 

PAOI 

Moderation  in  the  seventeenth  century 116 

Character  of  Henry  Morton        .....  116 

Patrick  Forbes 117 

Robert  Douglas 118 

Robert  Leighton     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  121 

His  devotion 121 

His  latitudinarianism      .         .         .         .         .         .  124 

Memorials  of  Leighton 130 

Lawrence  Charteris         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  181 

The  Revolution  Settlement  and  the  word  "  Moderation  "  132 

Carstairs     .........  133 

The  Literary  clergy 141 

Home 143 

Blair 143 

Robertson    ........  144 

Hume  and  Campbell 147 

The  Relief 149 

The  Glassites 150 

Intolerance 151 

Sir  George  Mackenzie 151 

Controversies  respecting  — 

Aikenhead 154 

Simson    .........  154 

Wishart 154 

Leechman I55 

Lnkewarmness    ........  155 

Reception  of  Whitefield 156 

Macknight  and  Leslie 159 

Irving  and  M'Leod  Campbell 159 

Note  on  the  Moderate  and  Popular  Parties       ....  160 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE  rUESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  CHUKCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 

Union  of  the  Church 165 

The  Spiritual  Church  of  Scotland 166 

Points  of  Union  166 

1.  Sentiment  towards  the  Ancient  Churches      .         .         .  168 

Larger  liberality  of  Episcopalians  .         .         .         .  171 

Dean  Ramsay 171 

Bishop  Ewing 171 

2.  Larger  liberality  of  Seceding  Churches         .        .        .  172 


XIV                                             CONTENTS. 

PAOE 

Thomas  Chalmers        .... 

175 

Dr.  John  Duncan 

179 

The  United  Presbyterians  .... 

180 

8.  Indications  of  general  enlargement 

181 

Edward  Irving 

181 

Thomas  Erskine 

183 

Robert  Burns 

187 

Walter  Scott 

190 

4.  The  Future  of  the  Established  Church     . 

193 

Its  historical  character    ..... 

194 

Its  Presbyterian  character  .... 

195 

Its  vitality 

196 

Its  relations  to  the  Seceding  Churches 

198 

Its  relations  to  the  Church  of  England     . 

200 

Chronological  Table 

205 

ii 


THE  ELEVENTH  COMMANDMENT." 


SERMON     PREACHED     IN    OLD     GREYFRIARS'    CHURCH, 
EDINBURGH,  ON  JANUARY  7,  1872. 


THE  ELEVENTH   COMMANDMENT. 

"^  new  commandment  I  give  unto  you."  —  John  xiii.  34. 

We  all  know  the  Ten  Commandments.  Is  there 
such  a  thing  as  a  new  commandment  —  an  The  Eiev- 
Eleventh    Commandment?      We    sometimes  "•audment 

.  .  of  the 

hear  m  conversation  of  such  an  Eleventh  world. 
Commandment  invented  by  the  world,  in  cynical 
contempt  of  the  old  commands,  or  in  pursuit  of 
some  selfish  or  wicked  end.  Of  such  an  Eleventh 
Commandment,  whether  in  jest  or  earnest,  we  need 
not  here  speak.  It  is  enough  to  be  reminded  of  it, 
and  pass  it  by.  But  there  is  also  what  may  be  called 
the  Eleventh  Commandment  of  churches  and  sects. 
In  the  oldest  and  most  venerable  of  all  -j.^^  j.,g^_ 
ecclesiastical  divisions  —  the  ancient  Samar-  mandnielu' 
itan  community,  who  have  for  centuries,  nLritaa^*' 
without  increase  or  diminution,  gathered  ^'^'^^' 
round  Mount  Gerizim  as  the  only  place  where  men 
ought  to  worship  —  there  is  to  be  read  upon  the  aged 
parchment-scroll  of  the  Pentateuch  this  command- 
ment, added  to  the  other  Ten  :  "  Thou  shalt  build 
an  altar  on  Mount  Gerizim,  and  there  only  shalt  thou 
worship."  Faithfully  have  they  followed  that  com- 
mand ;  excommunicating,  and  excommunicated  by, 
all  other  religious  societies,  they  cling  to  that  elev- 
enth command  as  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  all  the 
rest.     This  is  the  true  likeness  of  what  all  churches 


4  THE  ELEVENTH   COMMANDMENT. 

and  sects,  unless  purified  by  a  higher  spirit,  are 
tempted  to  add.  "  Thou  shalt  do  something  for  this 
particular  community,  which  none  else  may  share. 
Thou  shalt  do  this  over  and  above,  and  more  than 
thy  plain,  simple  duties  to  God  and  man.  Thou  shalt 
build  thine  altar  on  Mount  Gerizim,  for  here  alone 
our  fathers  have  said  that  God  is  to  be  worshipped. 
Thou  shalt  maintain  the  exclusive  sacredness  of  this 
or  that  place,  this  or  that  word,  this  or  that  doctrine, 
this  or  that  party,  this  or  that  institution,  this  or 
that  mode  of  doing  good.  Thou  shalt  worship  God 
thus  and  thus  only."  This  is  the  Eleventh  Command- 
ment according  to  sects  and  parties  and  partisans. 
For  this  we  are  often  told  to  contend  more  than  for 
all  the  other  Tfen  together.  For  an  Eleventh  Com- 
mandment like  to  this,  half  the  energies  of  Christen- 
dom have  been  spent,  and  spent  in  vain.  For  some 
command  like  this  men  have  fought  and  struggled 
and  shed  their  own  blood  and  the  blood  of  others,  as 
though  it  were  a  command  engraven  on  the  tables 
of  the  everlasting  law  ;  and  yet,  again  and  again 
and  again,  it  has  been  found  in  after  ages  that  such  a 
command  was  an  addition  as  venerable,  perhaps,  and 
as  full  of  interest,  but  as  superfluous,  as  misleading, 
as  disproportionate,  as  that  Eleventh  Samaritan  com- 
mandment :  "  Thou  shalt  build  an  altar  on  Mount 
Gerizim,  and  there  only  shalt  thou  worship." 

But  there  is  yet  another  Eleventh  Commandment, 
The  Eiev-  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  world,  uor  yet  of  mere  churches 
mandSe'St  ^^  sccts  —  the  truc  Elevcuth  commandment 
ChSian  ^^  the  Christian  Religion.  I  have  spoken  of 
religion.  ^j^^^^  Samaritan  commandment  as  I  have  seen 
it  far  away  in  the  sunny  vale  of  Shechem,  beneath 


RUTHERFORD   AND  USHER.  5 

the  gray  cliffs  of  Mount  Geriziiii.  May  I  introduce 
this  Christian  commandment  by  a  scene  nearer  home, 
within  the  bounds  of  your  own  kingdom  and  Church 
of  Scotland ;  a  story  known  doubtless  to  many 
amongst  you,  but  which  a  stranger  may  be  permitted 
to  recall.  There  may  be  some  here  present  who 
have  visited  the  retired  Vale  of  Anwoth,  on  the 
shores  of  Galloway.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the 
minister  of  the  parish  of  Anwoth  was  the  famous 
Samuel  Rutherford,  the  great  religious  oracle  of  the 
Covenanters  and  their  adherents.  It  was,  as  all  read- 
ers of  his  letters  will  remember,  the  spot  which  he 
most  loved  on  earth.  The  very  swallows  and  spar- 
rows which  found  their  nests  in  the  church  of  An- 
woth were,  when  far  away,  the  objects  of  his  affec- 
tionate envy.  Its  hills  and  valleys  were  the  witnesses 
of  his  ardent  devotion  when  living ;  they  still  retain 
his  memory  with  unshaken  fidelity.  It  is  one  of  the 
traditions  thus  cherished  on  the  spot,  that  on  a  Sat- 
urday evening,  at  one  of  those  family  gatherings 
whence,  in  the  language  of  the  great  Scottish  poet, 

"  Old  Scotia's  grandeur  springs,' 

when  Rutherford  was  catechizing  his  children  and 
servants,  that  a  stranger  knocked  at  the  door  of  the 
manse,  and  (like  the  young  English  traveller  in  the 
celebrated  romance  which  has  given  fresh  life  to 
those  same  hills  in  our  own  age)  begged  shelter  for 
the  night.  The  minister  kindly  received  him,  and 
asked  him  to  take  his  place  amongst  the  family  and 
assist  at  their  religious  exercises.  It  so  happened 
that  the  question  in  the  catechism  which  came  to  the 
stranger's  turn  was  that  which   asks,  "•  How  many 


6  THE  ELEA'^ENTH   COMMANDMENT. 

commandments  are  there?"  He  answered  "Eleven." 
"  Eleven  !  "  exclaimed  Rutherford,  "  I  am  surprised 
that  a  man  of  your  age  and  appearance  should  not 
know  better.  What  do  you  mean?"  And  he  an- 
swered, "  A  new  commandment  I  give  unto  you,  that 
ye  love  one  another ;  as  I  have  loved  you,  that  ye 
also  love  one  another.  By  this  shall  all  men  know 
that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have  love  one  to 
another."  Rutherford  was  much  impressed  by  the 
answer,  and  they  retired  to  rest.  The  next  morn- 
ing he  rose  early  to  meditate  on  the  services  of 
the  day.  The  old  manse  of  Anworth  stood  —  its 
place  is  still  pointed  out  —  in  the  corner  of  a  field, 
under  the  hill-side,  and  thence  a  long,  winding, 
wooded  path,  still  called  Rutherford's  Walk,  leads  to 
the  church.  Through  this  glen  he  passed,  and,  as  he 
threaded  his  way  through  the  thicket,  he  heard 
amongst  the  trees  the  voice  of  the  stranger  at  his 
morning  devotions.  The  elevation  of  the  sentiments 
and  of  the  expressions  convinced  him  that  it  was  no 
common  man.  He  accosted  him,  and  the  traveller 
confessed  to  him  that  he  was  no  other  than  the  great 
divine  and  scholar,  Archbishop  Usher,  the  Primate  of 
the  Church  of  Ireland,  one  of  the  best  and  most 
learned  men  of  his  age,  who  well  fulfilled  that  new 
commandment  in  the  love  which  he  won  and  which 
he  bore  to  others ;  one  of  the  few  links  of  Christian 
charity  between  the  fierce  contending  factions  of  that 
time,  devoted  to  King  Charles  I.  in  his  life-time,  and 
honored  in  his  grave  by  the  Protector  Cromwell.  He 
it  was,  who,  attracted  by  Rutherford's  fame,  had  thus 
come  in  disguise  to  see  him  in  the  privacy  of  his  own 
home. 


RUTHERFORD   Am)  USHER.  7 

The  stern  Covenanter  welcomed  the  stranger  pre- 
late; side  by  side  they  pursued  their  way  along 
Rutherford's  Walk  to  the  little  church,  of  which  the 
ruins  still  remain ;  and  in  that  small  Presbyterian 
sanctuary,  from  Rutherford's  rustic  pulpit,  the  arch- 
bishop preached  to  the  people  of  Anwoth  on  the 
words  which  had  so  startled  his  host  the  evening  be- 
fore :  "  A  new  commandment  I  give  unto  you,  that 
ye  love  one  another ;  as  I  have  loved  you,  that  ye 
also  should  love  one  another." 

Let  me,  on  this  occasion,  humbly  endeavor  to  fol- 
low the  example  of  that  illustrious  prelate,  and  leav- 
ing the  old  eleventh  commandment  of  the  Samaritan 
sect,  say  a  few  words  on  the  new  eleventh  command- 
ment of  the  Christian  Church. 

I.  Let  me  speak  first  of  its  original  meaning.  If  we 
can  easily  imagine  the  surprise  of  the  pious  i.  its  orig- 
Scotsman  when  he  first  heard  of  an  eleventh  rng.""^*" 
commandment,  much  more  may  we  figure  to  our- 
selves the  surprise  of  the  Apostles  when  they,  for  the 
first  time,  heard  this  new  announcement  from  the 
lips  of  their  Divine  Master.  "  What  ?  Are  not  the 
Ten  Commandments  enough  ?  Must  we  always  be 
pressing  forward  to  something  new  ?  What  is  this 
that  He  saith,  'A  new  commandment?'  We  can- 
not tell  what  He  saith." 

True  it  is  that  on  those  old  Ten  Commandments, 
much  more  on  the  two  great  commandments,  hang 
all  the  law  and  the  prophets.  They  contain  the  land- 
marks of  our  duty  —  the  landmarks  of  our  religion. 
But  there  is  yet  a  craving  in  the  human  heart  for 
something  even  beyond  duty,  even  beyond  rever- 
ence.    There  is  a  need  which  can  only  be  satisfied 


8  THE   ELEVENTH   COMMANDMENT. 

by  a  new,  by  an  eleventh  commandment,  which  shall 
be  at  once  old  and  new  —  which  shall  open  a  new 
field  of  thought  and  exertion  for  each  generation  of 
men ;  which  shall  give  a  fresh,  undying  impulse  to 
its  older  sisters  —  the  youngest  child  (so  to  speak) 
of  the  patriarchal  family,  the  youngest  and  holiest 
and  best  gift  of  Him  who  has  kept  the  good  wine  till 
the  last.  Many  a  false  eleventh  commandment,  as 
I  have  said,  has  been  put  forth  by  the  world  to  sup- 
ply this  want  in  its  way ;  many  a  false  eleventh  com- 
mandment has  been  put  forth  by  the  churches  in 
their  way.  But  the  true  new  commandment  which 
our  Saviour  gave  was,  in  its  very  form  and  fashion, 
peculiarly  characteristic  of  his  way  —  peculiarly  char- 
acteristic of  the  Christian  religion. 

The  novelty  of  the  commandment  lay  in  two 
points.  First,  it  was  new,  because  of  the  paramount, 
predominant  place  which  it  gave  to  the  force  of  the 
human  affections,  the  enthusiasm  for  the  good  of  oth- 
ers, which  was,  —  instead  of  ceremonial,  or  mere  obe- 
dience, or  correctness  of  belief,  —  henceforth  to  be- 
come the  appointed  channel  of  religious  fervor.  And 
secondly  it  was  new,  because  it  was  founded  on  the 
appearance  of  a  new  character,  a  new  manifestation 
of  the  character  of  Man,  a  new  manifestation  of  the 
character  of  God.  Even  if  the  Four  Gospels  had  been 
lost,  we  should  see,  from  the  urgency  with  which  the 
Apostles  press  this  new  grace  of  Love  or  Charity  upon 
us,  that  some  diviner  vision  of  excellence  had  crossed 
their  minds.  The  very  word  which  they  used  to  ex- 
press it  was  new,  for  the  thing  was  new,  the  example 
was  new,  and  the  consequences  therefore  were  new 
also.  "Love  one  another,"  was  the  doctrine  of  Jesus 
Christ,  "  as  I  have  loved  you." 


ITS   PECULIARITY.  9 

The  solid  blocks  or  tables  on  which  tlie  Ten  Com- 
mandments were  written  were  of  the  granite  rock  of 
Sinai,  as  if  to  teach  us  that  all  the  great  laws  of  duty 
to  God,  and  duty  to  man,  were  like  that  oldest  pri- 
meval foundation  of  the  world  —  more  solid,  more 
enduring  than  all  the  other  strata ;  cutting  across  all 
the  secondar}^  and  artificial  distinctions  of  mankind  ; 
heaving  itself  up,  now  here,  now  there ;  throwing  up 
the  fantastic  crag,  there  the  towering  peak,  here  the 
long  range  which  unites  or  divides  the  races  of  man- 
kind. That  is  the  universal,  everlasting  character  of 
Duty.  But  as  that  granite  rock  itself  has  been  fused 
and  wrought  together  by  a  central  fire,  without 
which  it  could  not  have  existed  at  all,  so  also  the 
Christian  law  of  Duty,  in  order  to  perform  fully  its 
work  in  the  world,  must  have  been  warmed  at  the 
heart,  and  fed  at  the  source  by  a  central  fire  of  its 
own  —  and  that  central  fire  is  Love  —  the  gracious, 
kindly,  generous,  admiring,  tender  movements  of  the 
human  affections;  and  that  central  fire  itself  is  kept 
alive  by  the  consciousness  that  there  has  been  in  the 
world  a  Love  beyond  all  human  love,  a  devouring  fire 
of  Divine  enthusiasm  on  behalf  of  our  race,  which  is 
the  Love  of  Christ,  which  is  of  the  inmost  essence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.  It  is  not  contrary  to  the 
Ten  Commandments.  It  is  not  outside  of  them,  it  is 
within  them ;  it  is  at  their  core ;  it  is  wrapped  up  in 
them,  as  the  particles  of  the  central  heat  of  the 
globe  were  encased  within  the  granite  tables  in  the 
Ark  of  the  Temple. 

This  was  what  the  Apostle  Paul  meant  by  saying, 
"Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law."  This  is  what  St. 
Peter  meant  by  saying,  "  Above  all  things,  have  fer- 


10  THE  ELEVENTH   COMMANDMENT. 

vent/'  enthusiastic  "  Love."  This  is  what  St.  John 
meant  when,  in  his  extreme  old  age,  he  was  carried 
into  the  marketrplace  of  Ephesus,  and,  according  to 
the  ancient  tradition,  repeated  over  and  over  again 
to  his  disciples  the  words  which  he  had  heard  from 
his  Master,  "  Little  children,  love  one  another." 
Thev  were  vexed  by  hearing  this  commandment, 
this  Eleventh  Commandment,  repeated  so  often. 
They  asked  for  something  more  precise,  more  definite, 
more  dogmatic ;  but  the  aged  Apostle,  we  are  told, 
had  but  one  answer :  "  This  is  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance of  the  Gospel ;  if  you  do  this,  I  have  nothing 
else  to  teach  you."  He  did  not  mean  that  ceremo- 
nies, doctrines,  ordinances  were  of  no  importance; 
but  that  they  were  altogether  of  secondary  impor- 
tance. He  meant  that  they  were  on  the  outside  of 
religion,  whereas  this  commandment  belonged  to  its 
innermost  substance  ;  that,  if  this  commandment 
were  carried  out,  all  that  was  good  in  all  the  rest 
would  follow ;  that  if  this  commandment  were  neg- 
lected, all  that  was  good  in  all  the  rest  would  fade 
away,  and  all  that  was  evil,  and  one-sided,  and  exag- 
erated,  would  prevail  and  pervert  even  the  good. 
He  meant,  and  his  Master  meant,  that  as  the  ages 
rolled  on,  other  truths  may  be  folded  up  and  laid 
aside  ;  but  that  this  would  always  need  to  be  enforced 
and  developed. 

This,  then,  is  the  new  commandment ;  we  are  to 
love  one  another,  by  making  the  best  of  one  another ; 
by  seeing,  as  far  as  we  can,  their  better  side. 

"  He  that  will  live  in  peace  and  rest 
Must  see  and  hear  and  say  the  hest." 

So  says  an  ancient  proverb,  which  well  expresses  the 


ITS  MEANING.  11 

meaning  of  this  divine  command.  The  newxjommand- 
ment  was  not,  "  Agree  with  one  another  in  opinion 
or  in  form."  It  was  not,  as  often  has  been  said  in 
the  name  of  religion,  "  Hate,  kill,  extirpate  one 
another."  It  was  not,  as  in  our  weakness  we  often 
say,  "  Flatter,  indulge,  yield,  to  one  another."  It  was 
not,  as  might  in  one  sense  well  be  said,  "  Teach  one 
another,  or  govern  one  another."  The  command  was, 
"Love  one  another."  Love  one  another  in  spite  of 
your  differences,  in  spite  of  your  faults,  in  spite  of 
the  excesses  of  one  or  the  defects  of  another.  Love 
one  another,  and  make  the  best  of  one  another,  as 
He  loved  us,  who,  for  the  sake  of  saving  what  was 
good  in  the  human  soul,  forgot,  forgave,  put  out  of 
sight  what  was  bad  — who  saw  and  loved  what  was 
good  even  in  the  publican  Zaccheus,  even  in  the 
penitent  Magdalen,  even  in  the  expiring  malefactor, 
even  in  the  heretical  Samaritan,  even  in  the  Pharisee 
Nicodemus,  even  in  the  heathen  soldier,  even  in  the 
outcast  Canaanite.  Make  the  most  of  what  there  is 
good  in  institutions,  in  opinions,  in  communities,  in 
individuals.  It  is  very  easy  to  do  the  reverse,  to 
make  the  worst  of  what  there  is  of  evil,  absurd,  and 
erroneous.  By  so  doing  we  shall  have  no  difficulty 
in  making  estrangements  more  wide,  and  hatreds 
and  strifes  more  abundant,  and  errors  more  extreme. 
It  is  very  easy  to  fix  our  attention  only  on  the  weak 
points  of  those  around  us,  to  magnify  them,  to  irri- 
tate them,  to  aggravate  them  ;  and,  by  so  doing, 
we  can  make  the  burden  of  life  unendurable,  and 
can  destroy  our  own  and  others'  happiness  and  use- 
fulness wherever  we  go.  But  this  was  not  the  love 
wherewith  Christ  loved  us  ;  this  is  not  the  new  love 


12  THE   ELEVENTH   COMINIANDMENT. 

wherewith  we  are  to  love  one  another.  That  love  is 
universal,  because  in  its  spirit  we  overcome  evil 
simply  by  doing  good.  We  drive  out  error  simply  by 
telling  the  truth.  We  strive  to  look  on  both  sides  of 
the  shield  of  truth.  We  strive  to  speak  the  truth  in 
love,  that  is,  without  exaggeration  or  misrepresenta- 
tion ;  concealing  nothing,  compromising  nothing,  but 
with  the  effort  to  understand  each  other,  to  discover 
the  truth  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  error  j  with 
the  determination  cordially  to  love  whatever  is  lov- 
able even  in  those  in  whom  we  cordially  detest 
whatever  is  detestable.  And,  in  proportion  as  we  en- 
deavor to  do  this,  there  may  be  a  hope  that  men 
will  see  that  there  are,  after  all,  some  true  disciples 
of  Christ  left  in  the  world,  "  because  they  have  love 
one  to  another." 

II.  Such  is  the  original  of  the  Eleventh  Command- 
Appiica-  ment,  as  it  was  first  delivered  by  Christ  and 
E°e°  enti?^  his  Apostlcs.  It  is  in  one  sense  old,  for  it 
menTto"*^'  has  bccu  iu  the  world  for  eighteen  cen- 
ions*^dr^'  turies.  Yet  in  another  sense  it  is  always 
churches.  j^Q^y^  fQj.  [[^  oftcu  lias  bccu  Superseded,  even 
amongst  Christians,  by  that  old  Samaritan  command- 
ment of  which  I  spoke  at  the  beginning.  It  is 
always  new,  for  it  admits  and  demands  ever  fresh 
applications  to  the  circumstances  of  every  Christian 
congregation,  every  Christian  nation,  and  every 
Christian  Church.  May  I,  on  this  occasion,  pass  by 
the  application  to  individuals  and  to  nations,  and  fix 
your  attention  for  a  few  moments  on  the  new  im- 
pulse, the  new  facilities  which  we  possess  for  fulfill- 
ing the  love  which  different  churches  ought  to  have 
one  towards  anotjier,  loving  each  other,  even  as 
Christ  loved  them  all. 


ITS   APPLICATION.  13 

(1.)  First,  this  love  does  not  imply  the  necessity 
of  absorbino;  one  church  into  another,  or  of  (i)  Better 

.  1  1       •  1  mutual  ap- 

destroying  one  church  in  order  to  make  preciation. 
room  for  another.  It  consists —  and  herein  the  tend- 
encies of  our  age  give  us  an  immense  assistance  in 
carrying  out  the  new  commandment  —  it  consists  in 
a  better  understanding,  a  better  appreciation  of  the 
peculiar  spirit  of  every  church  —  in  recognizing  the 
peculiar  semblance  which  exists  under  outward  di- 
vergencies. For  this  discharge  of  our  Christian  duty, 
the  increased  knowledge  of  our  past  history,  the  in- 
creased means  of  personal  communication,  are  homely, 
but  not  less  sacred  channels  through  which  this  grace 
may  flow  in  and  out  on  all  the  various  sections  of 
Christendom.  It  was  a  just  remark  of  a  veteran 
statesman  and  historian  of  France,  in  speaking  of  the 
electric  effect  produced  on  the  fiercest  of  the  leaders 
of  the  old  Revolution  by  being  suddenly,  and  for  the 
first  time,  brought  into  close  contact  with  the  unfor- 
timate  Queen  :  "  How  many  estrangements,  misun- 
derstandings, mortal  enmities,  would  be  cleared  up 
and  dispelled,  if  the  adversaries  could,  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, meet  eye  to  eye  and  face  to  face."  Not  less 
true  is  this  of  ecclesiastical  than  of  political  hostili- 
ties. The  more  we  see  of  each  other,  the  more  we 
know  of  each  other,  the  less  possible  is  it  to  believe 
each  other  to  be  out  of  the  pale  of  Christian  salva- 
tion, or  Christian  sympathy  ;  the  more  necessary  does 
it  become,  in  thinking  and  in  speaking  of  the  pres- 
ent ecclesiastical  state  and  the  future  eternal  state  of 
the  divided  churches,  to  "  bear  all  things,  believe  all 
things,  hope  all  things,  endure  all  things  "  of  those 
whom,  in  the  times  of  our  mutual  ignorance,  we  re- 


14  THE   ELEVENTH   COMMANDMENT. 

garded  as  aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel, 
and  strangers  from  the  covenants  of  promise. 

(2.)  Secondly,  this  love,  this  increased  intercourse 
(2.)  Larger  and  appreciation,  does  not  imply  the  dispar- 
theoiogT"^  agement  or  the  discouragement  of  Christian 
truth  or  Christian  theology,  in  the  proper  sense  of 
those  words.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  necessary 
consequence  of  the  larger  growth  and  deeper  root 
which  true  Christian  theology  has  taken,  and  may 
yet  more  fully  take,  in  the  circumstances  of  our 
time.  Not  without  reason  did  the  venerable  patri- 
arch of  German  Catholic  theology,  when,  address- 
ing a  short  time  since  the  University  of  Munich,  de- 
clare that  of  all  the  sciences  that  which  would  gain 
most  from  the  impetus  of  modern  events  was  Theol- 
ogy, which  must  henceforth  "  transform  her  mission 
from  a  mission  of  polemics  into  a  mission  of  irenics ; 
which,  if  it  be  worthy  of  the  name,  must  become  a 
science,  not,  as  heretofore,  for  making  war,  but  for 
making  peace,  and  thus  bring  about  that  reconcilia- 
tion of  churches  for  which  the  whole  civilized  world 
is  longing."  It  is  but  a  natural  result  of  the  deeper 
study  of  the  several  parts  of  the  Bible,  according  to 
the  intention,  meaning,  and  force  of  each  —  that  the 
inward  spirit  and  "meaning  of  Christian  truth  should 
be  seen  athwart  and  beneath  the  outer  forms  in  which 
the  necessary  development  of  later  times  has  encom- 
passed it.  It  is  but  the  natural  result  of  the  increas- 
ing nge  of  the  world,  that  it  should  learn  that  tem- 
perance in  theological  argument,  that  better  sense 
of  proportion  in  theological  statements,  which  we 
sometimes  see  in  the  increased  moderation  of  the  ex- 
perience of  individuals,  in  the  mildness  of  the  mel- 


ITS   APPLICATION.  16 

lowed  old  age  of  Athanasiiis  and  Augustine,  of  Lu- 
ther, of  Baxter,  and  of  Wesley.  It  is  but  the  nat- 
ural result  wherever  lofty  intellectual  powers,  or 
powerful  spiritual  discernment,  have  turned  on  theo- 
logical subjects.  The  religious  thoughts  of  Bacon,  But- 
ler, and  Berkeley,  of  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Wal- 
ter Scott ;  or,  again,  of  Pascal  and  Thomas  a  Kempis ; 
or,  again,  coming  down  to  a  lower  level,  of  Bishop 
Wilson's  Maxims,  or  Wliichcote's  Aphorisms ;  or  yet, 
again,  the  sermons  of  Frederick  Robertson  in  the 
Church  of  England,  and  the  "  pastoral  counsels " 
of  John  Robertson  in  the  Church  of  Scotland,  alike 
lead  us  to  that  peaceful  path  of  true  wisdom  ''  which 
the  lion's  whelp  hath  not  trodden  nor  the  vulture's 
eye  seen  "  — which  the  fierce  fanatic  hath  not  known, 
nor  the  jealous  polemic  guarded. 

(3.)  Thirdly,   the    true    union    between  Christian 
Churches  promoted  by  the  deepenino;  sense  (3)  Union 

1  •  •         -11       1  T  f  O  for  great 

—  deepenmg  m  all  that  have  eyes  to  see  or  objects. 
ears  to  hear  the  signs  of  the  time  —  the  deepening 
sense  of  the  mighty  works  that  have  to  be  achieved, 
and  that  may  be  achieved,  for  the  moral  and  social 
regeneration  of  mankind.  There  are  unions  between 
churches  that  are  often  proposed  as  mere  strategic 
operations  against  some  church  or  party  which  we 
dread  or  dislike.^  Such  strategy  may  be  needed; 
for,  in  this  mixed  world,  we  must  ever  be  more  or 
less  militant.  But  with  operations  of  this  kind  the 
new  commandment  of  Christian  love  has  no  special 
concern.  It  is  when  we  see  some  union  formed  for 
high  philanthropic  objects,  or  inspired  by  a  common 
feeling  of  sympathy  for  what  is  in  itself  just,  noble, 

1  See  Lecture  IV. 


16  THE  ELEVENTH   COMMANDMENT, 

and  true,  that  we  recognize  a  sample  of  what  ought 
to  be  the  anhnating  principle  of  the  true  fraternal 
unity  of  churches.  "  Nothing,"  says  a  philosophic 
observer  of  our  own  time,  *'  produces  such  steadfast 
friendships  as  working  together  for  some  public 
good."  Nothing  so  fuses  together  all  differences  as 
gome  event  which  evokes  the  better  side  of  human 
nature  in  large  masses  of  men.  Few  could  fail  to  be 
struck  by  the  sudden  transformation  of  the  whole 
British  nation  into  a  people  with  one  heart  and  one 
soul,  in  the  recent  combination  of  personal  compas- 
sion and  national  sentiment  called  out  by  the  anxiety 
for  the  safety  of  the  heir  to  the  English  throne. 
Such  an  example  is  a  likeness  of  what  might  be 
effected  by  a  loyal,  universal  enthusiasm  on  behalf 
of  the  great  principles  of  truth,  justice,  and  benefi- 
cence, which  are  the  true  objects  of  the  devotion  of 
Christendom.  The  age  of  the  Crusades,  for  which 
Robert  the  Bruce  sought  to  give  his  heart's  blood,  is 
past  and  gone.  But  there  are  causes  of  Christian 
charity  far  holier  than  that  for  which  the  Crusaders 
fought,  which  might  call  forth  more  than  the  Crusa- 
ders' chivalry.  The  Solemn  League  and  Covenant 
is  dead  and  buried ;  but  the  New  Commandment, 
which  bids  us  unite  instead  of  dividing,  and  build 
up  instead  of  destroying,  is  a  league  f;ir  more  sacred, 
a  covenant  far  more  binding  than  any  which  your 
forefathers  ever  signed  with  their  blood,  or  followed 
to  death  or  victory.  The  famous  Confession  of 
Faith  which  issued  from  Westminster  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  as  the  expression  of  the  whole 
Church  and  nation  of  Great  Britain  —  noble  and  in- 
spiring though  it  was,  in  some  respects  beyond  all 


GREYFRIARS'  CHURCH.  17 

the  confessions  of  Protestant  Europe  —  is  yet  not  to 
be  compared  with  the  uniting  and  sanctifying  force 
of  the  Christian  Engh'sh  literature  which  in  the 
nineteenth  century  has  become  the  real  bond  and 
school  of  the  nation,  beyond  the  power  of  educa- 
tional or  ecclesiastical  agitation  to  exclude  or  to  per- 
vert. 

Such  are  some  of  the  manifold  ways  in  which  the 
Eleventh  Commandment  may  in  this  age  be  Associa- 
fulfilled  as  never  before.  And  surely  it  may  Greyfriars' 
be  said,  that  if  there  be  any  spot  where,  ^^"'''^'i- 
should  the  preacher  be  silent  on  this  great  theme, 
the  very  stones  would  immediately  cry  out,  it  is  this 
venerable  sanctuary.  Of  Greyfriars'  Church  and 
churchyard,  as  of  my  own  Abbey  of  Westminster,  it 
may  truly  be  said,  that  it  is  the  consecrated  temple 
of  reconciled  ecclesiastical  enmities.  Here,  as  there, 
the  silence  of  Death  breathes  the  lesson  which  the 
tumult  of  life  hardly  suffered  to  be  heard.  In  the 
same  ground  with  the  martyrs  of  the  Covenant  lies 
the  great  advocate  by  whose  counsel  their  blood  was 
shed.^  Within  the  same  hallowed  bounds  sleep  the 
wise  leaders  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  in  the  next 
generation,  whom  the  persecutors  and  the  persecuted 
of  an  earlier  age  would  alike  have  condemned.  And 
not  only  is  this  lesson  of  larger,  gentler,  more  dis- 
criminating justice  forced  upon  us  by  the  thought  of 
that  judgment-seat  before  which  these  all  are  passed ; 
but  the  memory  also  of  the  deeds  which  have  been 
wrought  within  these  precincts  impresses  the  same 
truth  upon  us.  Here  it  was  that  Episcopalian  minis- 
ters  shed   tears  of  grateful  sorrow  over  the  grave 

1  See  Lecture  III. 


18  THE  ELEVENTH   COMMANDMENT. 

of  Carstairs ;  here  Erskine,  with  generous  candor, 
preached  the  funeral  eulogy  over  his  ecclesiastical 
rival,  William  Robertson.  On  this  spot,  where  a  vast 
congregation  of  every  age  and  rank  pledged  them- 
selves against  every  form  and  shade  of  Prelacy,  the 
Scottish  Church  has,  in  these  latter  days,  had  the 
courage  to  revive  the  ancient  forms  of  liturgical 
worship,  and  welcome  the  ministrations  of  Episcopa- 
lian clergy. 

These  contrasts  are  of  themselves  sufficient  to  re- 
mind us  how  transitory  are  the  feuds  which  have  in 
earlier  days  rent  asunder  the  churches  of  these  isl- 
ands —  hoAV  eternal  are  the  bonds  which  unite  them, 
when  viewed  in  the  light  of  history,  and  as  before 
the  judgment  of  a  higher  world.  And  if  the  ghosts 
of  the  ancient  disputes  have  been  here  laid  to  sleep, 
never,  we  trust,  to  return  —  if  the  coming  of  a 
brighter  age,  and  the  opening  of  a  wider  horizon, 
has  dawned  from  time  to  time  on  the  teachers,  fa- 
mous in  their  generation,  who  have  ministered  within 
these  walls  —  then,  I  trust,  it  will  not  have  been 
unsuitable  that  in  this  place,  and  on  this  occasion,  a 
Scottish  congregation  should  have  heard  from  an 
English  churchman,  the  best  New  Year's  blessing 
under  the  form  of  this  sacred  text :  "  A  new  com- 
mandment I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  should  love  one 
another." 


LECTURE  T. 


THE   CELTIC,   THE  MEDIiEVAL,   AND   THE   EPISCOPAL 
CHURCH. 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  INSTITUTE, 
JAlSrUARY  8,   1872. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE  CELTIC,  THE  MEDIEVAL,   AM)  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH. 

It  requires  some  courage  in  an  Englishman  to  ad- 
dress a  Scottish  audience  on  a  subject  so  peculiarly 
their  own  as  the  Church  of  Scotland.  The  motto  of 
your  own  thistle, "  Nemo  me  impune  lacessit,"  might 
almost  be  rendered  in  regard  to  the  Scottish  Church, 
— "  No  one  has  ever  meddled  with  it  without  re- 
penting of  it."  And  this  apprehension  might  be  yet 
further  increased,  when  it  is  remembered  that  I  ap- 
pear before  you  as  the  representative  of  a  prelatical 
hierarchy,  as  an  Erastian  of  the  Erastians.  But  I 
gather  confidence  from  the  kind  indulgence  which 
I  have  received  from  all  sections  of  the  Scottish 
Church,  and  I  venture  to  premise  that  in  the  plan 
which  I  propose  to  take  I  find  some  grounds  of  en- 
couragement. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  attempt  any  narrative 
of  Scottish  ecclesiastical  history.  Even  were  pj^n  of  t^e 
it  possible  for  me  to  do  so,  it  is  unneces-  ''^*='"^^- 
sary.  No  part  of  the  British  islands  has  had  the  his- 
tory of  its  Church  so  fully  told  as  Scotland. i  Assum- 
ing, therefore,  in  my  audience  a  knowledge  of  the 
general  facts,  all  that  I  now  propose  is  to  call  at- 
tention to  such  leading  features  as  serve  as  land- 
marks to  the  whole. 

1  See  Preface  to  the  Lectures. 


22    CELTIC,  MEDIEVAL,  AND  EPISCOPAL  CHUKCHES.    Lect.  I. 

In  speaking  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  I  shall 
have  occasion  in  my  following  lectures  to  show  more 
at  length  that  the  only  strict  and  legitimate  sense  in 
which  the  word  can  be  applied  is  in  reference  to  the 
National  Church  of  Scotland,  as  established  by  law. 
But  it  so  happens  that  in  Scotland  this  expression 
takes  a  wider  range  than  the  corresponding  phrases 
either  in  England  or  Ireland.  There  are  at  present 
what  may  be  called  three  Churches  in  Scotland, — 
the  Established  Church,  the  Dissenting  Presbyterian 
Churches,  and  the  Dissenting  Episcopalian  Churches ; 
and  the  course  of  my  lectures  will  follow  these  di- 
visions. But,  nevertheless,  such  a  distinct  demarca- 
tion as  this  would  be  misleading.  However  much 
the  Scottish  nation  has  been  broken  up  by  religious 
divisions,  these  divisions  have  not  only  not  broken  up 
the  unity  of  the  nation,  but  they  have  not  altogether 
broken  up  the  unity  of  the  Church.  There  is  a  true 
sense  in  which  the  Established  Church,  the  different 
Seceding  Churches,  and  the  Episcopalian  Churches, 
are  all  parts  of  one  and  the  same  Church  of  Scotland 
—  a  sense  truer  than  that  in  which  this  might  possi- 
bly be  said  of  the  Three  ^  Irish  Churches,  or  of  the 
Church  of  England  in  relation  to  the  numerous 
churches  and  sects  which  surround  it.  The  three 
forms  of  Scottish  belief  and  church  government  have 
at  different  times  so  overlapped  and  run  across  each 
other,  that  there  have  been  periods  when,  without 
any  straining  of  language,  each  one  of  them  might 
have  been  called  the  Church  or  the  religion  of  Scot- 
land.   And  yet  more,  the  different  elements  specially 

1  See  Lecture  on  "  The  Three  Irish  Churches,"  in  Essays  on  Church 
and  State,  p.  379. 


Lect.  I.  PLAN  OF  THE  LECTURES.  23 

characteristic  of  each,  are  in  varying  proportions 
characteristic  also  of  the  whole.  There  are  Scottish 
traits  which  are  never  lost  in  any  of  them ;  there  are 
peculiarities  which  might  seem  to  belong  only  to  one 
or  other  of  these  forms,  but  which  yet  reappear  in 
each  of  the  three.  The  tartan  is  the  same  through- 
out ;  it  is  only  the  red,  the  blue,  or  the  green  that 
are  differently  adjusted. 

It  need  hardly  be  said,  that  an  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory where  such  affinities  can  be  traced  is  exceed- 
ingly instructive,  as  showing  how  the  true  grounds  of 
union  or  disunion  underlie  the  superficial  grounds  of 
either.  And  when  from  the  relations  of  the  differ- 
ent Scottish  communions  towards  each  other  we  pass 
to  their  common  relations  to  other  churches,  a  new 
interest  arises  from  the  strongly  marked,  almost  gro- 
tesque exaggeration  in  which  these  different  forms 
represent  the  ecclesiastical  virtues  and  vices  which 
in  a  fainter  or  milder  aspect  appear  in  other  commu- 
nions. An  English  High-churchman  may  be  encour- 
aged or  discouraged,  as  the  case  may  be,  at  finding 
himself  reproduced  in  vivid  colors  by  a  Scottish  Free- 
churchman  or  Covenanter.  An  English  Noncon- 
formist may  be  warned  or  stimulated  by  seeing  his 
likeness  in  an  Anti-burgher,  or  a  Cameronian.  An 
English  Latitudinarian  may  be  comforted  or  troubled, 
as  the  case  may  be,  by  finding  his  close  affinity  with 
a  Scottish  Moderate.  The  well-known  wish  of  the 
great  Scottish  poet  is  fulfilled  by  the  lessons  of  Scot- 
tish church  history :  — 

"  O  that  some  fay  the  gift  would  gie  us, 
To  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us." 

Perhaps  the  Scotsman  may  derive  some  of  the  bless- 


24    CELTIC,  MEDIEVAL,  AND  EPISCOPAL  CHURCHES.    Lect.  L 

ings  of  this  gift,  when  he  hears  himself  described 
by  an  Englishman.  Certainly  the  Englishman  may 
derive  some  of  those  blessings  by  seeing  himself,  as 
the  case  may  be,  caricatured  or  transfigured  by  a 
Scotsman. 

I  propose,  then,  in  the  following  lectures,  to  en- 
pian  of  the  dcavor  to  bring  out  some  of  these  points  in 
Features.  the  different  departments  of  Scottish  history. 
The  present  lecture  will  be  devoted  to  the  somewhat 
complicated  task  of  passing  in  review  the  early  con- 
dition of  Scottish  religion.  In  so  doing,  it  will  be 
my  object  to  obtain  some  glimpses  into  the  ancient 
elements  out  of  which  the  present  ecclesiastical  con- 
dition has  arisen ;  to  show  the  identity  of  customs  and 
sentiments  between  the  earliest  and  the  latest  stages; 
to  mark  the  influence  from  first  to  last  exercised  by 
the  southern  kingdom  through  these  channels,  and 
to  exhibit  through  the  successive  stages  the  develop- 
ment of  Episcopacy  in  Scotland,  and  the  extremely 
entangled  state  of  its  relations  to  Presbyterianism. 

It  is  obvious  that  this  can  only  be  done  in  a  dis- 
cursive and  disjointed  manner,  but  the  subject  within 
the  prescribed  limits  admits  of  no  other  treatment. 

The  first  period,  then,  is  that  of  the  earliest  be- 
The  Celtic  gi^nings  of  Scottish  Christianity,  from  the 
Church.  fourth  to  the  eleventh  century.  Let  me  first 
speak  of  the  outward  frame-work  of  the  ecclesiastical 
constitution.  The  relation  of  early  Presbyterianism 
to  early  Episcopacy  in  Scotland  is  the  more  worth 
discussing  because  it  forms  part  of  a  larger  system 
which  prevailed  throughout  Celtic  Christendom. 
That  there  were  persons  bearing  the  name  of  bishop 
in  the  earliest  Christian  history  of  Scotland  is  un- 


Lkct.  I.  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH.  25 

doubted.^  But  it  is  equally  undoubted  that  they  had 
no  dioceses,  no  jurisdiction,  no  territorial  episcopal 
succession.  Their  orders  were  repudiated  by  the 
prelates  of  England  and  France.^  The  primate  of 
the  Church  of  Scotland  for  the  first  three  hundred 
years  of  its  history  was  not  a  bishop  but  a  presbyter 
—  first  the  abbot  of  lona,^  then  of  Dunkeld.  The  abba- 
i  he  succession  was  a  succession,  not  of  Epis-  tem. 
copal  hands,  but  of  a  dead  presbyter's  relics.^  Early 
bishops  of  St.  Andrew's,  Glasgow,  and  the  like,  figure 
in  legends,  but  they  had  no  existence  in  fact.°  The 
abbot,  not  the  bishop,  was  regarded  as  the  ordinary 
ecclesiastical  ruler,  and  the  superiors  of  the  various 
monasteries,  by  which  the  country  was  evangelized, 
looked  to  the  chief  abbot  as  the  head  of  their  whole 
church.  It  was,  in  fact,  the  same  system  as  that 
which  prevailed  in  the  ancient  Irish  Church,^  of  which 
some  traces  are  still,  even  in  the  Latin  Churches,  to 
be  seen  in  the  all  but  episcopal  power  of  the  great 
Benedictine  abbots  of  Monte  Casino  and  La  Cava. 

Thus  much  is  acknowledged  by  all.  It  may  be 
more  doubtful,  but  it  is  still  the  most  obvious  infer- 
ence from  Bede's  '^  narrative,  that  the  abbots  and 
presbyters  of  lona  actually  ordained  or  consecrated 
the  bishops  whom  they  sent  forth  to  England ;  and 
it  is  therefore  exceedingly  probable  that  the  episco- 
pal succession  of  the  northern  provinces  of  England 

1  Grub,  i.  139,  Irish  Churches."  Essays  on  Church 

9  Ibid.  127,  128.  and  State,  382,  383. 

3  Ibid.  135.  7  Bede,  iv.  3, 5.    This  inference  is 

4  Ibid.  131.  contended  by  Mr.  Grub  (1.  151-157) 

5  This  is  well  put  in   Burton's  in  an  able  but  not  conclusive  argu- 
History  of  Scotland,  i.  281.  ment. 

8  Ibid.  14.  Lecture  on  the  "  Three 


26  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

has  been  deeply  colored  by  Presbyterian  blood.  It 
was  the  belief  of  the  chief  Scottish  chronicler  of  the 
Middle  Ages  that  these  same  exalted  presbyters 
consecrated^  bishops,  and  crowned  and  consecrated 
kings.  The  first  Christian  rite  of  coronation  is,  in 
fact,  derived  from  Columba's  coronation  of  the  Celtic 
Chief  of  the  Hebrides.^  That  which  in  England  was 
believed  to  be  so  inalienable  a  prerogative  of  the 
see  of  Canterbury  that  Becket  shed  his  blood  rather 
than  concede  it  even  to  his  brother  primate  of 
York,^  was  in  Scotland  yielded  without  a  struggle 
by  the  whole  of  the  Scottish  Episcopate  to  a  wild 
abbot  fresh  from  Ireland. 

It  is  not  to  be  inferred  from  this  account,  that  the 
early  ecclesiastical  system  of  Scotland  was  like  the 
modern.  It  was,  no  doubt,  as  unlike  modern  Pres- 
byterianism  as  it  was  unlike  modern  Episcopacy. 
The  abbots  were  not  bishops,  but  they  were  prelates. 
They  were  presbyters,  but  they  had  no  presbyteries. 
Still  it  is  possible  that  the  subtle  influence  which 
ancient  institutions  exercise  over  far  distant  ages 
may  in  this  case  have  been  not  without  its  effect, 
and  that  when  the  earthquake  came  in  which  Epis- 
copacy perished,  the  Scottish  soil  had  been  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  prepared  for  its  overthrow,  by  the  fact 
that  the  earliest  evangelizers  had  not  been  bishops. 

There  is  another  peculiar  characteristic  of  this 
The  vital-  ^^^^y  period,  which  is  specially  to  be  seen 
Si"*  '^^  i^  Scotland.  Whatever  remains  there  were 
"*'"*"•        of  the  early  Celtic  saints  of  England  have 

1  Fordun's  Scoti-Chronicon,  vi.  3  Memorials  of  Canterbury,  68,  69, 
49;  Grub.  i.  159.  78,90,125. 

2  Adamnan,    iii.  5.   Marten^,    ii. 
213. 


Lect.  L  the   CELTIC  CHXJRCH.  27 

long  since  perished.  The  one  solitary  name  which 
figures  in  the  ancient  Christian  history  of  England, 
is  the  martyr  of  the  Roman  city  of  Verulam,  St. 
Alban.  After  him,  no  other  ecclesiastical  association 
exists,  legendary  or  historical,  if  we  except  the  ob- 
scure saints  of  Cornwall  and  Wales,  till  we  reach 
Augustine.  The  memories  of  St.  Botolph  and  St. 
Dunstan,  of  St.  Edmund  and  St.  Edward,  although 
they  retained  a  strong  influence  during  long  tracts  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  main- 
tained their  vitality  to  our  own  time.  But  in  Scot- 
land, even  in  spite  of  the  vast  counter  wave  of  the 
Reformation,  the  local  attractions  of  these  primitive 
missionaries  still  hold  their  ground,  and  their  suc- 
cessive apparitions  may  well  recall  for  a  moment 
the  various  stages  of  the  original  Celtic  faith.  The 
first  figure  that  distinctly  emerges  from  the  mists 
of  fable  in  the  pages  ^  of  Bede  is  the  Cumbrian  or 
Galwegian  saint  of  the  White  House,  the  first  stone 
church  of  the  Roman  camp  of  Leucophibia  or  Whit- 
horn.^ We  can  still  see  the  ruined  chapel  on  the 
lonely  island  promontory,  the  yet  more  ancient  pri- 
ory where  his  remains  repose  —  once  the  spot  to 
which  kings  and  princes  came  ^  in  pilgrimage  across 
the  trackless  wilds  of  Galloway  long  after  such  toil- 
some devotions  had  ceased  in  England.  We  can 
explore  the  cave   called  by  his  name,  which  opens 

1  Bede,  iii.  4.     Grub,  i.  1 2.  mit  these  slight  recollections  of  the 

2  Is  not  "  Whithorn  "  and  pos-  instructive  intercourse  witli  him  dur- 
sibly  "  Candida  Casa  "  simply  the  ing  a  delightful  visit  to  the  "  holy 
Anglicized  and  Latinized  form  of  places  "  of  Galloway,  in  1871,  when 
Leucophibia?  he  discovered  the  cross  mentioned 

3  Mr.    Stuart    of   the     Register  in  the  lecture. 
House,  Edinburgh,  will,  I  trust,  per- 


28  THE  CELTIC  CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

from  beneath  the  samphire-covered  cliff,  undermined 
by  the  waves  of  Glenluce  Bay ;  and  on 
which  a  rudely  carved  cross  still  marks  the 
original  sanctity  of  the  spot ;  where,  following  the 
practice  of  his  master,  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  he  may 
well  have  retired  for  his  devotions.  These,  and  the 
churches  and  chapels  which  bear  his  name  through- 
out Scotland  are  standing  monuments  of  the  once 
wide-spread  power  of  the  name  of  St.  Ninian ;  and 
to  him  alone,  of  all  British  saints,  a  coeval  monu- 
ment still  points  in  unmistakable  characters.  No- 
where in  Great  Britain  is  there  a  Christian  record 
so  ancient  as  the  gray  weather-beaten  column  which 
now  serves  as  the  gate-post  of  the  deserted  church- 
yard of  Kirk  Madreen  ^  on  the  bleak  hill  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  Rinns  of  Galloway,  and  bearing  on  its 
battered  surface,  in  letters  of  the  fourth  century,^ 
the  statement  that  it  had  marked  the  graves  of 
three  saints  of  Gallic  name,  Florentius,  Vincentius, 
and  Mavorius.  Few,  very  few,  have  been  the  trav- 
ellers that  have  reached  that  secluded  monument ; 
long  may  it  stand  as  the  first  authentic  trace  of 
Christian  civilization  in  these  islands. 

Or,  to  pass  from  Galloway  to  Fifeshire,  where  in 
England  shall  we  find  a  hermitage  so  vener- 
able as  the  caves  which  St.  Serf  scooped  out 
for  himself  on  the  craggy  "  desert "  ^  of  the  shores  of 
the  Firth  of  Forth,  or  on  the  romantic  spot  marked 

1  Doubtless  Mathurinus,  the  dis-  2  It   is   given  at  length  in  Mr. 

ciple  (according  to  the  Roman  Ha-  Stuart's  Sculptured  Stones  of  Scot- 

giology)  of  St.   Martin   of  Tours,  land.     Plate  Ixxi.  p.  36. 

with  whom,  according  to  Bede,  St.  3  "  Desertum,"  the  modern  "  Dy- 

Ninian  himself   had   passed   some  sart." 
time  on  his  return  from  Rome. 


Lect.I.  the  CELTIC  CHURCH.  29 

by  the  little  chapel  beneath  the  wooded  hill  of  Cul- 
ross,  where  he  discovered  the  infant  Kentigern,  his 
darling  Mungo?  Or,  if  we  carry  on  the  story  of 
that  wondrous  child,  what  city  of  Great  Britain 
bears,  as  its  heraldic  emblems,  such  a  train  of 
legendary  associations  as  in  the  three  miracles  *  "°^°' 
of  St.  Kentigern  still  retained  on  the  shield  of  the 
great  commercial  city  of  Glasgow  ?  ^  Or  what  scene 
of  ancient  British  missionary  labors  can  we  so  viv- 
idly represent  to  ourselves  as  the  circle  of  venerable 
trees  on  the  banks  of  the  Molendinar,^  under  whose 
shade  sprang  up  the  wooden  church  which  the  same 
Kentigern  erected  as  the  centre  of  that  Cumbrian 
Christianity,  which  reached  from  St.  Asaph  to  Stir- 
ling. 

And  as  we  are  led  on,  not  by  an  episcopal  but  a 
true  apostolical  succession,  from  one  of  these  saints  to 
another,  the  legend  of  St.  Kentigern  carries  us  on  to 
the  first  distinct  and  definite  personage  of  the  Scot- 
tish Church.  To  his  retreat  above  the  brawling  mill- 
stream  in  what  was  even  then  a  consecrated  grave- 
yard —  the  first  germ  of  that  vast  cemetery,  whence 
the  statue  of  John  Knox  looks  down  over  the  teem- 
ing city  of  Glasgow  ^  —  came,  according  to  tradition, 
to  exchange  their  pastoral  staves,  the  Abbot  of  lona, 
the  founder  of  the  hierarchy  which  lasted  for  four 
hundred  years,  St.  Columba.  "  The  way  of  the  holy 
hath  been  made  light,"  said  the  one.  "  The  holy 
shall  go,"  cried  the  other, "  from  strength  to  strength 
—  they  all  shall  appear  in  Zion."  * 

1  Burton,  i.  24.  3  Ibid. 

a  See  the  admirable   article  on  *  Montalembert's  Monks   of  the 

"  Scottish  Abbeys  and  Cathedrals,"  West.    Moines  de  I'  Occident,    iii. 

by  the  lamented  Joseph  Robertson,  325. 
in  the  Quarterly  Review,  Ixxxv.  130. 


30  THE  CELTIC   CHUECH.  Lect.  I 

Let  me  say  a  few  words  concerning  lona,  and  con- 
cerning Coliimba. 

The  natural  features  and  the  Celtic  names  still 
preserved  in  lona^  give  us  the  complete  frame-work 
of  the  earliest  authentic  history  of  Scottish  Chris- 
tianity. We  can  trace  Columba's  arrival  and  sojourn 
here  almost  step  by  step.  The  northern  coast 
of  Ireland  and  the  western  coast  of  Caledonia 
were  to  the  dwellers  on  either  side  almost  as  one 
country — both  were  regarded  as  the  land  of  the 
Scots.  From  the  promontories  of  Antrim  the  Scot- 
tish shores  are  completely  visible.  When  Columba 
left  his  native  glens  in  Donegal,  and  his  dear  familiar 
oak  groves  of  Derry,  a  banished,  excommunicated 
man,  these  shores  were  to  him  the  natural  outlet  of 
his  zeal.  He  was  to  leave  his  own  island ;  but  whilst 
he  sought  the  nearest  sphere  of  his  future  labors,  it 
must  also  be  one  which  placed  him  beyond  the  temp- 
tation of  returning  home.  In  the  Hebridean  group, 
the  first  which  he  reached  was  that  formed  by  Jura 
with  its  three  craggy  "  Paps,"  and  the  two 
islands  now  called,  we  can  hardly  doubt,  from 
himself  and  his  companion,  Colonsay^  and  Oransay. 
But  from  Colonsay  Ireland  was  'still  visible.  He  could 
not  trust  himself  within  view  of  it.  He,  with  his 
twelve  companions,  in  their  frail  coracle,  embarked 

1  I  have  given  here  the  results  of  refer  for  more  complete  details  on 

a  personal  investigation  of  the  local-  the  subject. 

ities  of  lona  in  the  summer  of  1869.        8  The    parallel     with     Oransay 

Since  that  time  the  results  of  a  yet  seems  decisive  as  to  the  explana- 

more  extended  investigation  of  the  tion,  and  though  Colonsay  is  called 

island  and  its  history  has  been  pub-  "  Coloso  "  by   Adamnan,  tliis  can 

lished  in  a  charming  little  volume  only  be  from  the  attempt  to  Latinize 

by  its    present  noble    owner,    the  it. 
Duke  of  Argyll ;  to  which  I  gladly 


Lect.  I.  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH.  31 

once  more.  They  pushed  on  across  the  open  sea.  In 
front  there  rose  a  pyramidal  hill,  which  seemed  to 
beckon  them  on.  It  was  Dun-I,  "the  hill  of  I,  or 
Hy."  At  the  south  end  of  the  island  there  is  a  bay 
deep  withdrawn  behind  a  group  of  rocky  islets  that 
stand  out  above  the  waves.  Between  these  rocks 
Columba  drove  his  coracle,  and  found  himself  on  a 
beach  of  the  pure  white  sand,  which  is  the  glory  of 
the  shores  of  lona,  sprinkled  with  the  green  serpen- 
tine pebbles  which  pilgrims  and  travellers  have  long 
carried  off  as  trophies.  This  is  still  called  the  Port 
of  the  Coracle,^  and  beneath  the  long  low  mound, 
slightly  fenced  around  with  cairns  and  stones,  sixty 
feet  long,  is  said  to  lie  buried  the  original  bark. 
Overhanging  this  bay  is  a  rocky  hill,^  which  Columba 
climbed,  and  looked  once  more  westward.  Ireland 
was  now  invisible ;  he  felt  himself  secure.  From 
this  point,  which  was  henceforth  to  be  called  "  the 
Hill  with  the  Back  turned  on  Ireland,"  he  descended 
into  the  island  which  he  was  to  make  his  own.  He 
advanced  across  the  low  hills  which  part  the  Bay  of 
the  Coracle  from  the  long  plain  which  looks  towards 
the  Isle  of  Mull.  Whatever  may  have  led  him  in 
the  first  instance  to  lona,  it  was  the  peculiarity  of 
this  plain  which  fixed  his  continuance  there.  He 
was  in  an  island  —  removed  from  the  immediate 
danger  of  attack  from  the  savage  Highland  tribes  — 

1  Port-a-hurrach,  the  Gaelic  mod-  2  Por  these  different  allusions  to 
ification  of  "  currach  "  in  composi-  the  local  features  —  locus  eminentior 
tion.  When  Johnson  and  Boswell  — in  saltibus — the  ivy  —  the  wood- 
came  to  the  spot,  they  were  per-  en  structure  of  the  huts,  see  Adam- 
plexed  by  finding,  as  they  thought,  nan's  Life  of  Columba. 
the  English  word  wherry  in  Port-a- 
wherry.     Boswell's  Johnson,  iii.  34. 


32  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

but  still  sufficiently  within  reach  of  the  main-land 
(for  such  the  Isle  of  Mull  may,  comparatively  speak- 
ing, be  called)  to  communicate  with  its  inhabitants, 
and  to  receive  provisions  and  communications  from 
them.  The  strait  is  so  narrow  that  the  human  voice 
could  be  heard  across;  and  one  of  the  most  frequent 
incidents  in  his  life  is  that  signals  came  of  some  ex- 
pected or  unexpected  guest  from  the  opposite  shore. 
"  Some  one  is  coming  over  who  will  upset  my  ink- 
bottle  ; "  and  so  it  proved.  Every  trace  of  the  actual 
habitations  of  Columba  has  perished ;  but  so  un- 
changed are  the  natural  features  of  the  place  that 
we  can  fix,  if  not  the  very  spot  on  which  he  pitched 
his  little  hut,  yet  the  close  neighborhood  of  it.  It 
was,  in  all  probability,  the  low  knoll  immediately 
above  the  humble  inn  of  the  modern  village.  There 
is  a  glen  on  the  west  of  the  island,  over  whose  rocky 
walls  hangs,  in  vast  tresses,  the  ivy  which  was  used 
to  weave  together  the  walls  of  the  huts,  built  of  the 
branches  of  thorn  and  briar  which  grow  not  far  off. 
In  this  glen,  and  in  others  of  like  kind,  Columba 
would  retire  at  times  from  his  little  community  to 
still  deeper  solitude.  One  of  them  is  still  called  the 
Glen  of  the  Temple,  and  leads  to  the  corn  plain  on 
the  other  side  of  the  island,  still,  as  in  Columba's 
time,  bearing  the  name  of  Machar  or  "  Sandy  Plain ; " 
out  of  the  midst  of  this  rise  two  green  hills.  It  is 
curious  that  to  these  and  not  to  the  towering  peak 
of  Dun-I,  is  attached  the  legend  which  invests  the 
island  with  its  most  peculiar  sanctity.  Columba,  in 
one  of  the  retreats  of  which  we  have  spoken,  with- 
drew into  this  plain,  forbidding  any  of  his  disciples 
to  follow  him.     One  of  them,  more  curious  than  the 


Lect.  I.  THE  CELTIC  CHURCH.  83 

rest,  climbed  a  rocky  point  which  runs  out  into  the 
plain,  and  from  thence  reported  that  he  saw  Columba 
on  the  larger  of  the  two  hills  holding  converse  with 
the  angels.  After  the  lapse  of  a  thousand  years  that 
eminence  is  still  called  the  "Knoll  of  the  Angels,"^ 
the  same  name  which  was  given  to  it  from  this  asso- 
ciation within  a  hundred  years  of  its  supposed  occur- 
rence. Nearer  to  the  habitation  of  the  saint  cluster 
the  local  recollections  of  his  last  days.  Winding 
along  the  slope  of  the  shore,  on  which  the  little  set- 
tlement was  established,  came  the  old  white  pony, 
which  received  his  parting  affectionate  caresses  on 
the  eve  of  his  death.^  The  scene  of  this  event  is  in 
all  probability  marked  by  the  one  cross  which  remains 
standing  in  lona,  commonly  called  the  cross  of  Mac- 
lean. Immediately  above  the  settlement  rises  a  sin- 
gularly marked  and  prominent  knoll,  which  com- 
mands the  whole  Strait  of  Mull.  This  hill,  still 
called  the  Tor  Ab,  —  the  Hill  of  the  Abbot,— the 
first  to  whom  that  venerable  name  was  given,  is, 
we  cannot  doubt,  the  little  hill,  "  the  Monticellus," 
which  Columba,  now  enfeebled  with  age,  climbed  on 
the  day  before  his  death,  and  foretold  its  future  fame. 
What  Columba  was  in  Ireland  I  have  elsewhere 
described.^  What  he  was  in  Scotland  is  un-  Hismis- 
fortunately  lost  in  a  tissue  of  unmeaning  Scotland, 
miracles.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  highly 
characteristic  tradition  that  the  evangelization  of 
Scotland  was  due  in  the  first  instance  to  a  deadly 

1  Cnoc  Angel.     It  is  also  called  2  Adamnan,  iii.  2.3. 

the  Great  Hill  of  the  Fairies,  as  the  '  "  The  Three  Irish   Churches," 

emaller  hill  is  called  the  Little  Hill  Lectures  on  Church   and  State,  pp. 

of  the  Fairies.     The  story  is  told  in  384,  386. 
Adamnan,  iii.  16  (Ileeves,  257). 
3 


34  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH.  Lect.  L 

quarrel  between  two  Irish  clans  about  the  appropria- 
tion of  a  Psalter,  and  that  the  first  apostle  of  Scotr 
land  was  under  the  ban  of  the  visible  Church.  The 
form  which  this  part  of  the  tradition  assumes  is  full 
of  interest. 

A  council  of  the  Irish  clergy  had  met  and  driven 
him  forth  as  an  excommunicated  outcast.  In  the 
council  —  so  runs  the  story  —  was  one  of  tbe  two 
mysterious  Irish  saints  who  bore  the  name  of  Bren- 
dan.^ Saint  Brendan,  when  the  excommunicated 
man  appeared  in  the  council,  rose  up  and  embraced 
him.  The  whole  council  burst  into  exclamations  of 
horror.  "  You  would  do  as  I  have  done,"  said  Bren- 
dan; "and  you  would  never  have  excommunicated 
him,  if  you  saw  what  I  see."  ^ 

Such  excommunicated  men  have  been  seen  in  Scot- 
land and  in  England  often  since.  They  may  be  seen 
at  this  moment  in  Rome,  in  Paris,  and  in  Munich. 
There  was  a  freedom  and  justice  in  this  old  Celtic  con- 
ception of  true  greatness,  which  even  at  this  day  we 
have  hardly  obtained.  Columba  is  not  the  only  ex- 
communicated man  w^ho,  to  the  eyes  of  the  truly  dis- 
cerning, has  had  beside  him  angels,  and  before  him 
a  pillar  of  fire.  Brendan  was  right  in  thinking,  "  a 
pillar  of  fire  before  him  and  the  angels  of  heaven 
beside  him.     I  dare  not  disdain  a  man  predestined 

1  Not,  I  fear,  the  one  who,  as  mortal  life,  he  was  allowed  to  retreat 

beautifiilly  told  in  Matthew  Arnold's  thither  from  the  fires  of  hell. 

Poems,  in  his  Arctic  voyages  had  2  This  other  was   the   elder   St. 

seen  and  brought  back  the  pathetic  Brendan,  whose   funeral,    attended 

vision  of  Judas  Iscariot,  refreshing  by  angels,  was  seen  in  a  vision  by 

himself  on  the  iceberg  in  the  one  Columba  when  in  lona.     Montalem- 

day  in  every  year,  in  which,  for  the  bert's  Moines  de  V  Occident,  iii.  135. 
one  deed  of  mercy  performed  in  his 


Lbot.  1.  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH.  3§ 

by  God  to  be  the  guide  of  an  entire  people  to  eternal 
life." 

It  is  a  story  which  teems  with  instruction.  His 
career  remains  a  glorious  proof  how  the  ban  of  the 
visible  Church  against  the  moving  spirits  of  mankind 
may  turn  out  to  be  vanity  of  vanities.  Whatever 
the  shortcomings  of  Columba,  St.  Brendan  was  right 
in  saying,  that  we  cannot  afford  to  "  disdain  a  man 
predestined  to  be  the  evangelizer  and  apostle  of  such 
a  nation  as  Scotland." 

The  other  recollections  of  lona  are  of  a  later  age. 
The  Martyrs'  Bay  —  the  white  beach  oppo-  The  sane- 
site  to  Mull,  which  derives  its  name  from  the  iona° 
massacre  of  the  natives  by  Danish  pirates,  —  is  the 
spot  on  which  the  funeral  processions  from  the  sur- 
rounding islands  have  disembarked  their  mournful 
freights,  and  placed  them  on  a  rude  mound  at  the 
curve  of  the  shore.  Thence  they  were  borne,  kings 
of  Scotland,  kings  of  Norway,  lords  of  the  Isles,  to 
the  cemetery  consecrated  by  the  neighborhood  of 
Columba's  bones,  but  deriving  its  name  from  his  com- 
panion of  dubious  fame,  the  indiscreet  Oran.  It  is 
the  oldest  regal  cemetery  of  Great  Britain  —  before 
Dunfermline,  before  Holyrood,  before  Westminster, 
before  Windsor.  It  is,  further,  the  most  continuously 
ancient  cemetery  of  the  world.  In  none  other  have 
the  remains  of  the  dead  been  laid  through  an  un- 
broken track  of  one  thousand  three  hundred  years, 
beginning  with  Columba  and  his  companions,  end- 
ing with  the  shipwrecked  mariners  of  a  few  years 
a  0*0. 

o 

And  as  it  is  the  most  venerable  cemetery  of  the 
Celtic  race,  so   also   is  it  marked  by  that  singular 


36  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

characteristic  of  Celtic  countries  —  the  union  of  tena- 
cious reverence  with  reckless  neglect,  which  only 
within  our  own  time  the  care  of  the  present  owner, 
worthy  of  the  precious  possession  intrusted  to  his 
charge,  has  endeavored  to  rectify  and  prevent.  With 
Oran's  cemetery  ends  the  true  historic  connection  of 
lona  with  Columba.  The  cathedral  of  lona,  with  its 
Norman  arches,  carries  us  both  by  its  style  and  its 
name  to  a  region  far  removed  from  the  first  Celtic 
missionary.  The  architecture  tells  of  its  origin  from 
the  half  Norman  Margaret,  under  whose  auspices  the 
royal  funerals  were  transferred  from  lona  to  Dun- 
fermline, indicating  the  transfer  of  sanctity  from 
these  western  islands  to  the  seat  of  Lowland  govern- 
ment. The  name  of  "  cathedral "  tells  how  far  the 
Church  of  Scotland  had,  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
drifted  away  from  the  days  when  the  abbot  of  lona 
was  supreme  over  the  Hebrides,  and  when  no  Episco- 
pal chair  had  constituted  any  Scottish  church  into  a 
cathedral.  But  of  that  long  mediaeval  history  of 
lona  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing,  has  come  down  to 
us.  The  last  historic  picture  which  the  sacred  island 
presents  us  is  but  within  fifty  years  of  Columba's 
death,  when  the  French  Bishop  Arculf,  driven  by 
stress  of  weather  on  his  return  from  the  Holy  Land, 
found  a  refuge  in  the  humble  tenement  of  the  Abbot 
Arculf  and  Adamuan,  and  where  Adamnan  took  down 
Adamnan.  ^^^^  j^jg  mouth  the  ouly  descriptiou  of  Pal- 
estine that  exists  between  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire and  the  Saracenic  occupation.  "We  see,  as  we 
read  the  disjointed  record,  the  traveller  telling,  the 
abbot  questioning,  till  the  whole  story  was  at  last 
recorded  in  its  present  rude  form. 


Lect.  I.  ITS   PECULLVRITIES.  37 

It  was  not  till  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century 
that  the  fame  of  Columba  once  again  at-  ^^  j^j^^. 
tracted  to  these  distant  shores  a  pilgrim  from  ^°°" 
the  world  of  letters,  as  illustrious  as  ever  was  drawn 
from  regal  or  episcopal  thrones  —  and  that  the  Holy 
Island  received  a  new  canonization  in  the  immortal 
sentence  which  now  springs  to  the  memory  of  every 
educated  Englishman  when  lona  is  named. 

"  We  were  now  treading  that  illustrious  island  which 
was  once  the  luminary  of  the  Caledonian  regions. 
That  man  is  little  to  be  envied  whose  patriotism  will 
not  gain  force  on  the  plains  of  Marathon,  or  whose 
piet}^  will  not  grow  warmer  among  the  ruins  of 
lona." 

Before  we  finally  quit  this  early  period  of  the 
Scottish  Church,  I  will  venture  to  note  two  gen- 
eral features  which  link  together  the  old  and  the 
new  Scotland  in  a  close  connection  often  little  sus- 
pected. One  is  the  fertility  and  rapidity  of  develop- 
ment equally  displayed  in  the  miraculous  legends 
of  the  ancient  and  modern  saints  of  Scotland.  The 
miracles    of    the    early  Scottish    saints    are  Miraculous 

stories  of 

not  in  themselves  more  fantastic  or  marvel-  earlier  and 

later  Scot- 

ous  than  those  which  adorn  the  hagiology  tish  sainu. 
of  England,  or  the  southern  countries  of  Europe. 
But  what  gives  them  a  singular  interest  is,  that 
they  are  of  the  same  kind  as  those  which  sprung 
up  on  the  same  soil  twelve  centuries  later,  in  a 
theological  atmosphere  of  the  most  opposite  char- 
acter. Even  as  regards  the  natural  enthusiasm 
which  gathered  round  their  lives  or  their  graves, 
there  is  no  country  in  which  the  traveller  passes,  by 
such  an  immediate  transition,  from  the  saints  of  the 


38  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH.  Lkct.  I. 

fourth  century  to  those  of  the  seventeenth,  as  when 
in  Galloway  he  comes  fresh  from  the  grave  of  St. 
Ninian  at  one  end  of  the  Wigtonshire  promontory, 
to  the  graves  of  Margaret  Maclachlan  and  Margaret 
Wilson,  who  sleep  in  the  churchyard  above  the  Bla- 
denoch  at  the  other  end.  And  when  we  read,  that 
in  heavy  showers  of  rain  St.  Ninian  rode  on  without 
a  drop  falling  on  his  book  of  devotions  ^  except  when 
a  light  thought  passed  through  his  mind,  and  that 
Eobert  Bruce  the  Covenanter  made  a  long  ride  to 
Stirling  under  the  same  circumstances,  perfectly  dry, 
whilst  his  less  godly  companion  was  drenched  to  the 
skin,  we  feel  at  once  that,  though  divided  by  the 
chasm  of  many  generations,  and  by  the  widest  revo- 
lutions of  opinion,  we  are  not  only  in  the  same  phys- 
ical atmosphere  of  endless  mist  and  storm,  but  in  the 
same  spiritual^  atmosphere  of  wild  credulity  and  in- 
exhaustible imagination.  Nowhere  can  the  vexed 
questions  of  the  miracles  of  religious  history  be  bet- 
ter discussed  than  in  Scotland,  because  nowhere  do 
they  appear  so  impartially  repeated  under  the  most 
diverse  phases  of  theological  thought ;  because  no- 
where is  it  more  evident  that,  whatever  may  be  said 
either  by  orthodox  or  heterodox  critics,  historical 
facts  can  be  disentangled  from  legendary  accretions, 
and  the  repetition  of  the  same  incidents  in  these  two 
most  divergent  epochs  proves  decisively  that  neither, 
on  the  one  hand,  do  true  flicts  necessitate  the  belief 

1  I  owe  this  parallel  to  Mr.  Stu-  below  the  Boat  of  Garton  Station, 
art.  where  a  stone  (since  destroyed)  was 

2  It  is  believed  in  Morayshire  erected  to  commemorate  the  event, 
that,  at  a  funeral  of  a  saint  belong-  Nothing  of  the  kind  has  occurred  in 
ing  to  the  so-called  "  Men,"  the  England  since  the  legend  of  St 
Spey  was  miraculously  dried  up  to  Alban. 

enable  the  procession  to  cross  just 


Lect.  I.  ITS   PECULIARITIES.  39 

in  the  accompanying  dubious  miracles,  nor,  on  the 
other,  need  the  questioning  of  dubious  miracles  dis- 
credit the  truth  of  the  facts  or  the  nobleness  of  the 
characters  connected  with  them. 

Another  aspect  of  the  same  identity  of  sentiment 
between  the  earliest  and  the  latest  develop-  Reverence 
ment  of  the  Scottish  Church  is  in  regard  to  mental  or- 
the  doctrine  oi  the  bacraments.  Jrerhaps  ii  in  earlier 
there  were  any  subject  on  which  it  might  times, 
have  been  thought  that  the  rent  of  the  Reformation 
would  have  divided,  by  an  impassable  gulf,  the  past 
and  the  present  history  of  Scotland,  it  would  be  the 
veneration  for  the  Eucharist.  Yet  this  is  the  very 
point  in  which  a  likeness  starts  to  view  such  as  would 
be  vainly  sought  in  any  other  country  in  Europe, 
over  which  a  like  change  had  passed.  Let  me  give 
two  examples.  It  was  remarked  in  the  eleventh 
century  that  one  deeply-rooted  feeling  of  the  ancient 
Scottish  ChuTch,  as  represented  by  the  Culdees,  was 
the  awful  reverence  for  the  sacrament,  growing  to 
such  a  pitch  that  from  mere  terror  of  the  ordinance, 
it  had  ceased  to  be  celebrated,  even  at  the  great  fes- 
tival of  Easter.^  Such  a  sentiment,  so  overleaping 
itself,  has  perhaps  never  been  equaled  again,  except 
in  the  Scotland  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Those 
who  know  the  influence  of  the  "  Men  "  in  the  High- 
lands tell  us  that  the  same  extravagant  awe,  causing 
an  absolute  repulsion  from  the  sacred  rite,  is  still  to 
be  found  there.^  Old  gray-headed  patriarchs  are  to 
be  seen  tottering  with  fear  out  of  the  church  when 
the  sacramental  day  comes  round  ;  many  refusing  to 

1  Grub,  i.  195,  196.     For  a  beau-    Scotland,    see    Principal    Shairp'a 
tiful  picture  of  the  true  reverence   poem  of  Kilmahoe. 
of    a   Presbyterian    Sacrament    in        2  Cunningham,  i.  99. 


40  THE  CELTIC  CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

be  baptized,  many  more  abstaining  from  the  Eucha- 
rist altogether ;  and,  at  the  time  when  the  Veto  Act 
was  discussed,  it  was  found  incompatible  with  any 
regard  to  the  rights  of  the  parishioners  to  leave  the 
election  in  the  hands  of  the  communicants,  because 
in  the  extreme  north  (where  the  "Men  "  prevailed), 
out  of  a  congregation  of  several  thousands,  the  com- 
municants, from  motives  of  excessive  reverence,  did 
not  exceed  a  hundred.^ 

The  other  is  a  more  pleasing  incident.  It  is  re- 
corded that  a  poor  half-witted  boy  in  Forfarshire^ 
clamored  incessantly  to  be  allowed,  as  he  expressed 
it,  to  partake  of  his  Father's  bread  in  the  sacra- 
mental elements.  At  last  the  minister  conceded  the 
point.  He  partook ;  and  the  same  night,  on  return- 
ing from  the  Sacrament,  he  kept  repeating,  in  a  rap- 
ture of  reverence,  "  I  have  seen  the  Pretty  Man." 
The  next  morning  he  was  found  dead  in  his  bed. 

Let  those  who  think  that  what  are  called  high 
views  of  the  Eucharist  are  peculiar  to  Episcopalian 
or  Catholic  Churches  consider  how  in  this  affecting 
story  is  contained  the  spiritual  element  of  the  same 
sentiment  which,  in  its  grosser  shape,  has  given  birth 
to  the  miracle  of  Bolsena  and  the  excesses  of  Tran- 
substantiation.  Let  those  who  think  scorn  of  the 
humble  Presbyterian  ordinances  reflect  how  in  them 
the  adoring  veneration  of  the  worshipper  may  be 
pitched  in  as  lofty  a  key  as  beneath  the  dome  of 

1  Turner's  History  of  the  Seces-  Reminiscences,  20th  edit.  p.  239.  1 
stow,  pp.  182,  184.  had  already  heard  the   story  froiri 

2  This  strange  incident  has  been  Mr.  Erskine  of  Linlather,  and  I 
turned  into  a  little  story,  entitled  have  been  told  that  it  occurred  at 
Yeddie's  First  and  Last  Sacrament,  Tannadine,  between  Forfar  and 
and  it  is  also  told  in  Dean  Ramsay's  Kerricmuir. 


Lect.  I.  THE  MEDLEVAL   CHURCH.  41 

St.  Peter's,  or  amidst  the  splendor  of  copes  and 
chasubles.  Is  it  too  much  to  suppose  that  a  sub- 
terranean current  of  Christian  feeling  has  linked 
together  the  child  and  the  man  of  Scottish  history 
in  this  respect,  more  evidently  than  in  the  regions 
where  otherwise  the  break  has  been  less  violent?^ 

II.  The  second  phase  of  Scottish  religion  is  that 
which  dates  from  the  establishment  of  the  The 

M'diiBval 

Anglo-Norman  hierarchy  by  Queen  Marga-  hierarchy, 
ret,  and  continues  down  to  the  Reformation.  There 
is  one  leading  peculiarity  of  this  period  which,  whilst 
it  appears  still  more  prominently  in  the  third  stage, 
on  which  we  shall  presently  enter,  belongs  also  in 
some  degree  to  the  first,  which  we  are  leaving. 

Scotland  is,  in  some  respects,  essentially  self-con- 
tained, and  on  this  depends  a  large  part  of  foreign 
its  ecclesiastical  history,  as  we  shall  see  in  "^fl"^°ces. 
my  next  lecture.  Yet  there  is  also  a  sense  in 
which  it  is  peculiarly  dependent  on  other  countries. 
Its  geography  almost  lends  itself  to  the  connection. 
Look  at  the  three  long  fingers  of  Galloway,  reaching 
out  into  the  sea  till  they  almost  clasp  the  coast  of 
Cumberland  and  the  Isle  of  Man,  and  even  the 
shores  of  Ireland.  The  kingdom  of  Strath-Clyde 
embraced  in  its  folds  the  Cumbrian  Churches  and 
tribes  on  both  sides  of  the  Solway.     That  wild  estu- 

1  Even  in  detail  some  of  the  Eu-  ly  raised  by  the  English  ritualists 

charistic  controversies  which  agitate  and  their  opponents,  respecting  the 

Episcopal  Churches  have  broken  out  elevation   of  the  consecrated    ele- 

on  the  like  questions  in  Scotland,  ments.    It  took  the  form  of  a  schism 

There  was   in   tlie   last  century  a  between    Lifters    and     Antilifters, 

long  ritual  dispute  between  a  pres-  which  at  last  emerged  in  the  Old 

byter  ajid   his    presbytery  exactly  and  New  Lights, 
analogous  to  that  which  was  recent- 


42  THE  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

ary  was  not  a  dividing  boundary,  but  a  highway  of 
communication    for   Ninian    and   for   Kentigern  (as 
well  as  for  Bruce  and  for  Guy  Mannering)  to  trav- 
erse  in  their  passage    to    and    fro  on  their  familiar 
journeys  or  look  at  the  Border.     Cuthbert  was  an 
Eno-lish   even   more    than    he  was  a   Scottish  saint. 
His  return  from  the  highlands  of  lona  to  his  native 
lowlands  of  Melrose  was  a  more  decisive  emigration 
than  his  wandering  over  the  Cheviots  of  Lindisfarne. 
His  own  Eildon  Hills  brooded  over  him  on  the  whole 
of  his    southern    journey.     Or   look    at   Edinburgh 
itself     Who  is  it  that  gives  the  name  to  your  own 
romantic  town  ?     It  is  no  Celtic  chief —  it  is  no  de- 
scendant of  Fergus  or  Fingal.     It  is  the  Northum- 
brian Edwin,  the  lirst-fruits  of  Christian  Yorkshire  — 
the  convert  of  the  first  English  Primate  of  the  North. 
And  not  only  on  England,  but  on  France  also,  did 
Scotland  lean,  often  as  on  a  broken  reed,  even  from 
her  earliest  days,  both  of  Church  and  State.     In  Nin- 
ian's  education  at  the  centre  of  French  Christianity 
in  Tours,  we  have  a  dim  foreshadowing  of  that  long 
connection  which   so    deeply  colored    the  language 
and  the  architecture  of  Scotland  through  so  many 
ages,  and  which,  even  in  our  own  day,  by  a  subtle 
sympathy,  seemed  to  draw  the  heart  of  the  Scottish 
nation,  in  spite  of  every  political  and  ecclesiastical 
difference,  towards  the  fortunes  of  suffering  France 
during  the  late  war.     But  this  adventitious  influence 
was  still  more  apparent  in  the  period  which  we  are 
now  approaching.    The  ancient  Church  had,  although 
transported  from  a  distance,  become  by  the  eleventh 
century  thoroughly  national.  It  was  a  Celtic  Church, 
planted  by  Celtic   missionaries   in   a    Celtic  people: 


Lect.  I.  ITS  EXTRANEOUS  ORIGIN.  43 

It  was  the  "  Scotland "  beyond  the  Irish  Channel 
that  gave  its  name  and  religion  to  the  Scotland  of 
lona  and  Melrose.  But  the  Mediaeval  Church  was 
altogether  a  foreign  intrusion,  the  more  so  from  the 
fact  that  it  found  a  preexisting  Church  to  modify 
and  subdue,  and  that  it  was  imposed  by  Teutonic 
settlers  on  a  Celtic  population. 

As  lona  indicates  the  purely  Irish  character  of  the 
Church  of  Columba,  so  the  Queen's  Ferry  and  St. 
Margaret's  Hope  represent  the  purely  English  char- 
acter of  the  Scottish  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  As 
across  the  Hebridean  sea  from  Ireland  came  the  ship 
which  bore  the  first  fortunes  of  Scottish  Christianity, 
so  up  the  recess  of  the  Frith  of  Forth  from  England 
came  the  ship  which  bore  the  second.  I  need  not 
repeat  the  romantic  tale,  how  Margaret,  the  g^  ^i^^_ 
Saxon  Princess,  and  her  companions,^  flying  ^^^^^' 
from  the  Norman  conquerors,  were  driven  ashore  by 
stress  of  weather  in  the  quiet  bay  which  now  bears 
her  name  ;  how  she  toiled  along  the  track  towards 
the  Celtic  "  fortress  by  the  winding  stream "  where 
Malcolm  with  the  Great  Head  was  intrenched  in  the 
depth  of  his  wooded  glen ;  how  he  found  her  seated 
on  the  stone  which  still  may  be  seen  on  that  same 
road  by  which  she  approached  Dunfermline;  how  he 
wooed  and  won  her  hand ;  how  she,  with  the  arts  of 
continental  civilization  then  just  taking  root  in  Eng- 
land, soothed  and  tamed  her  fierce  husband  ;  how, 
under  her  guiding  influence,  rose  the  Westminster  of 
Scotland,  Dunfermline  Abbey,  the  resting-place  of 
kings,  which  henceforth  diverted  to  itself  for  many 

1  The  whole  story  of  Margaret  is    Andrew's  in  Good  Words,  August, 
well  told  by  Principal  Shairp  of  St.    1867. 


44  THE  MEDLEVAL  CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

generations  the  glory  which  had  hitherto  belonged 
to  lona.  There,  beside  Malcolm,  at  the  east  end  of 
the  church,  her  remains  reposed.  Thence,  on  the  eve 
of  the  battle  of  Largs,  it  was  believed  by  the  Scots 
that  the  tombs  of  Dunfermline  gave  up  their  dead, 
and  that  there  passed  through  its  northern  porch 
to  "  war  against  the  might  of  Norway  "  a  lofty  and 
"  blooming  matron  in  royal  attire,  leading  in  her  right 
hand  a  noble  knight,  refulgent  in  arms,  with  a  crown 
on  his  head,  and  followed  by  three  heroic  warriors, 
like  armed,  and  like  crowned."  ^  These  were  Mar- 
garet, and  her  consort,  and  her  three  sons,  the  found- 
ers of  the  Mediasval  Church  of  Scotland.  "  What  she 
began  those  three  sons  long  continued  —  the  meek 
Edgar,  the  fierce  Alexander,  the  saintly  David.  Their 
aim  was  to  assimilate  the  Scottish  Church  in  all  re- 
spects to  the  English." 

Melrose,  Holyrood,  Kelso,  Newbattle,  Aberbro- 
Engiish  thock,  Kinloss,  Dryburgh,  Jedburgh,  and  half 
influences.    ^^^  g^^g  ^f  Scotlaud,  wcrc  fouudcd  by  the 

third  of  these  sons,  and  all  these  were  based  on  an 
English  model.  The  constitution  of  Glasgow  and 
Dunkeld  was  copied  from  Salisbury,  of  Elgin  and 
Aberdeen  from  Lincoln,  Dunfermline  from  Canter- 
bury, Coldingham  from  Durham,  Melrose  and  Dun- 
drennan  from  Rievaulx,  Dryburgh  from  Alnwick,  and 
Paisley  from  Wenlock.^ 

St.  David,  like  his  mother,  was  in  all  his  thoughts 
and  views  an  Englishman.  The  Church  which  they 
thus  erected  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  an  Eng- 
lish Church,  in  the  place  of  the  old  Celtic  Church  of 
the  Culdees. 

1  Quart.  Rev.  Ixxxv.  p.  120.  9  Quart.  Rev.  Ixxxv.  117  ;  Burton, 

ii.  62,  64. 


Lect.  I.  ITS  EXTRANEOUS  ORIGIN.  45 

Perhaps  the  spot  which  most  distinctly  brings  to 
light  the  transfer  of  the  seat  of  Scottish  ec-  gg^  ^f  g^^ 
clesiastical  forms  from  the  Celtic  west  to  the  ■^'^'^^'3- 
Anglicized  east  is  St.  Andrew's.  It  is  dimly  shadowed 
forth  in  the  migration  of  Kenneth  with  his  sacred 
stone  from  Dmistaffnage  to  Scone.  It  is  traced  more 
closely  in  the  steps  by  which  the  venerable  sea-girt 
fastness  rose  to  be  the  primatial  throne  of  Scotland. 
The  remnant  of  the  old  Culdee  church  on  the  ex- 
treme promontory  of  the  Muckross,  or  Headland  of 
the  Wild  Boar,  has  been  long  superseded  by  the  vast 
adjacent  pile  of  the  metropolitan  cathedral.  That 
pile  rests  for  its  legendary  basis  on  the  relics  of  the 
new  patron  saint  of  Scotland,  which  St.  Rule  brought 
from  Achaia  in  his  sailless  and  oarless  boat,  but  for  its 
historical  basis  on  the  new  growth  of  Norman  and 
English  influences  which  spread  from  Fifeshire  over 
the  whole  of  Lowland  Scotland, 

So  fully  was  the  external  origin  of  the  national 
episcopate  recognized,  that  the  supreme  jurisdiction 
over  the  Scottish  bishops  was  vested  partly  in  the 
Norwegian  Archbishop  of  Drontheim,  partly  in  the 
English  Archbishop  of  York.^  It  was  not  till  the 
best  of  the  mediaeval  prelates  of  Scotland,  Bishop 
Kennedy,  had  so  illustrated  the  see  of  St.  Andrew's 
by  his  statesmanship  and  his  virtues,  that  this  badge 
of  the  foreign  extraction  of  the  Scottish  Church  was 
finally  rejected,  and  that  in  1472  it  received  for  the 
first  time  a  native  primate.'^ 

But  the  gaunt  skeleton  of  the  cathedral  of  St. 
Andrew's  —  the  storm-vexed,  shattered  castle,  which 

1  Robertson's     Statula    Ecclesice        9  Grub,  i.  377. 
Scotiance,  Pref.  pp.  cxi.,  cxii. 


46  THE  MEDUEVAL   CHURCH.  Lect.  1. 

witnessed  from  without  the  execution  of  Wishart, 
and  from  within  the  murder  of  Beaton  —  hurries 
us  to  the  close  of  the  mediaeval  Episcopacy  of  Scot- 
land. 

The  fall,  the  tremendous  fall,  of  the  work  of  Mar- 
The  fall  garct  and  David  well  indicates,  from  another 
Medieval  poi^t  of  vicw,  its  cxtraueous  origin.  The 
Church.  beginning  of  its  decline  dates  from  the  hour 
when  the  power  of  England  over  Scotland  was  broken 
on  the  field  of  Bannockburn.  Then,  when  the  Eng- 
lish intrusive  elements  were  driven  back  across  the 
Border,  the  Scottish  episcopate  received  its  death- 
blow. In  a  double,  in  a  treble  sense  this  may  be 
traced.  Partly  the  spirit  thus  evoked  rose,  as  we 
shall  see,^  against  English  interference.  Partly,  and 
by  a  more  immediate  result,  the  disorder  into  which 
the  country  was  thrown,  and  the  withdrawal  of  the 
civilizing  influences  of  England,  led  by  degrees  to 
the  hideous  and  disproportionate  corruption  which 
took  possession  of  the  Scottish  hierarchy  during  the 
last  two  centuries  of  its  existence.  This  is  an  all- 
sufficient  explanation  for  the  wild  ^  and  disproportion- 
ate violence  with  which,  beyond  any  other  country 
in  Europe,  Scotland  carried  out  the  work  of  the 
Reformation. 

J  See  Lecture  II.  the  eye  of  an  English  traveller  at 

2  I  would  not  be  understood  here  Melrose,  Dryburgh,  Jedburgh,  and 

to  refer  to  the  common   belief  of  Kelso,  were  not  the  work  of  Scottish 

the  indiscriminate  destruction  of  sa-  fanatics,  but  of  the  Catholic  English 

cred  buildings.     Such  a  destruction  soldiers  of  Henry  VIII.  (see  Quart. 

doubtless  took  place  at  Perth  and  Rev.    Ixxv.    141-150).      What    is 

St.  Andrew's.     But  it  was  not  gen-  meant  is  the  extreme  antagonism 

eral,  and  the  ruins  which  most  im-  to  ancient  usages,  as  set  forth   in 

mediately  and  conspicuously  strike  Lectui-e  II. 


Lect.  I.  THE  MODERN  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH.  47 

III.  We  have  now  reached  the  third  stage  of  our 
progress,  which   begins  at  the    point  when   ^he 
this    connection   between    the   Enghsh    and  Episcopal 
Scottish  Churches  was  to  be  rent  asunder,   ^'^*^^^^- 
and  when  in  thef  sixteenth  century  the  neW  elements 
eventually  were  exploded,  which  formed  what   has 
been  the  purely  National  Church  of  Scotland.     On 
this  I  shall  enter  hereafter;  but  for  the   present  I 
still  continue  to  track    the    struggle  of  Episcopacy 
and  of  the  English  connection  with  the  native  influ- 
ences at  work  in  Scotland  itself. 

All  know  the  attempts  of  the  Stuart  Kings  to  re- 
vive Episcopacy  after  its  interruption  by  the  Refor- 
mation. On  the  one  hand  it  is  curious  to  observe 
how,  like  the  Episcopate  of  Margaret  and  David,  it 
was  not  of  Scottish  but  of  English  growth.  Arch- 
bishop Spottiswoode,  from  whom  the  episco-  its  English 
pal  succession  under  James  VI.  took  its  rise,  °"^'"" 
was  consecrated  entirely  by  English  hands  in  the 
private  chapel  of  London  House,  and  lies  himself  in 
Westminster  Abbey.  Archbishop  Sharpe,  from  whom 
the  second  succession  sprang,  under  Charles  II.,  was 
equally  the  creation  of  English  prelates  in  the  same 
Abbey,  in  the  Chapel  of  Henry  VII. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  from  policy  or 
necessity,  the  whole  settlement  of  modern  Scottish 
Episcopacy  was  far  more  Presbyterian,  far  less  Epis- 
copal and  Catholic,  than  in  any  country  in  Europe. 
Doubtless  this  was  partly  occasioned  by  the  fact, 
that  in  England  itself  the  sentiment  towards  Pres- 
byterian Churches  was  far  more  generous  and  com- 
prehensive in  the  century  which  followed  the  Ref- 
ormation than   it  was  in    that  which   followed    the 


48  THE   MODERN  EPISCOPiiVL  CHURCH.  Lect.  L 

Restoration.  The  English  Articles  are  so  expressed 
as  to  include  the  recognition  of  Presbyterian  minis- 
ters. The  first  English  Act  of  Uniformity  was 
passed  with  the  expressed  view  of  securing  their  ser- 
vices to  the  English  Church.  The  first  English  Re- 
itsreia-  formcrs,  and  the  statesmen  of  Elizabeth, 
Presby-  would  havo  bccu  astouishcd  at  any  claim  of 
teriamsm.  exclusivc  sauctity  for  the  Episcopal  order.^ 
But  it  was  in  Scotland  that  this  mutual  recognition 
was  most  apparent.  John  Knox  had  as  little  belief 
in  the  paramount  and  divine  character  of  Presbyte- 
rianism  as  Cranmer  had  in  the  paramount  and  di- 
vine character  of  Episcopacy.  So  far  from  shunning 
connection  with  the  English  Church,  he  eagerly 
sought  to  fortify  its  friendly  relations  with  the 
Church  of  Scotland  :  so  far  from  regarding  the  con- 
tact with  Prelacy  as  a  soul-destroying  abomination, 
almost  his  last  signature,  "  with  a  dead  hand  but  u 
glad  heart,"  ^  is  subscribed  beneath  the  name  of 
the  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrew's.  It  was  not  Knox, 
but  Andrew  Melville,^  who  introduced  into  Scot- 
land the  divine  right  of  Presbytery,  the  sister  dogma 
of  the  divine  right  of  Episcopacy,  which  Bancroft 
and  Laud  introduced  into  England.  But  even  after 
the  mutual  charities  of  the  first  age  of  the  Ref- 
ormation  had    been   thus    contracted,   in  Scotland, 

1  See  this  well  drawn  out  in  Lord  (Tracts  of  David  Fergusson,  p.  80). 
Macaulay's  Correspondence  with  The  sermon  itself  which  is  thus 
the  Bishop  of  Exeter ;  and  in  Prin-  recommended  is  also  a  remarkable 
cipal  Tulloch's  article  on  the  Eng-  proof  of  Knox's  moderation.  Com- 
lish  and  Scottish  Churches  in  the  municated  to  me  by  the  kindness 
Contemporary    Review,    December,  of  Lord  Neaves. 

1871.  3  Compare  Sir  H.  M.  Wellwood'a 

2  See    the    signature    to    David    Life  of  Erskine,  p.  507. 
Fergusson's    sermon    on   Sacrilege 


Lect.  L         ITS   RELATIONS   TO  PRESBYTERIAI^ISM.  49 

the  two  systems  in  practice  flourished  in  the  closest 
contact  with  each  other.  The  General  Assembly, 
of  which  the  constitution  had  been  inspired  by  An- 
drew Melville,  continued  to  sit  side  by  side  with  the 
hierarchy  of  James  VI.^  The  Episcopalian  curates 
in  Charles  II.'s  reign  were  under  the  Presbytery, 
the  Kirk  session,  and  the  Synod,  with  the  Bishop 
presiding.^  The  Confession  of  Faith  held  by  the 
Episcopal  Church  of  Scotland  was  not  that  of  the 
Episcopal  Church  of  England ;  it  was  substantially 
the  same  as  the  Confession  of  John  Knox.^  The 
Scottish  Prayer-book  (with  one  exception,  that  of  the 
words  of  administering  the  Eucharistic  elements) 
was  not,  as  is  often  erroneously  supposed  by  both 
sides,  more  Roman  and  less  Protestant  than  the  Eng- 
lish, but  in  all  essential  points  was  more  Protestant 
and  less  Roman.  "  Presbyter  "  was  everywhere  sub- 
stituted for  "  Priest."  The  Apocryphal  Lessons  were 
omitted.  The  service  for  the  Eucharist  embodied 
the  true  Protestant  doctrine  of  spiritual  sacrifice  in 
the  very  centre  of  the  consecration  prayer  far  more 
prominently  than  is  the  case  in  the  present  English 
Prayer-book.*  The  consecration^  itself  was  accord- 
ing to  the  Anti-Prelatic,  not  the  Prelatic  view  of  the 
subject.     In   the    Ordination    Service,  as   appointed 

1  Cunningham,  ii.  18.     Even  in  published  in  the  Scottish  Guardian 

the  very  acts  of  hostility  this  joint  of  February  1,  1872,  p.  71. 

authority    was     recognized.      The  2  Burton,  i.  269. 

deposition  of  the  Bishops  of  Charles  3  Innes's  Law  of  Creeds  in  Scot- 

L  by  the  General  Assembly  of  Glas-  land,  pp.  38,  639. 

gow  in  1638  was  recognized  as  an  *  See   this  well   brought   out  in 

ecclesiastical   act,   depriving    them  Bunsen's  Christianity  and  Mankind, 

not  only  of  all  civil,  but  of  all  spir-  ii.  184-186. 

itual  authority.   See  the  interesting  5  Scottish  Liturgies,  p.  109. 
memorandum  of  Joseph  Robertson, 
4 


50  THE  MODERN  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

under  James  VI.,  there  was  a  marked  exclusion^  from 
the  Ordination  of  Priests  of  the  questionable  words 
which,  according  to  many  devout  churchmen,  both 
of  that  time  and  our  own,  are  "  the  very  essential 
words  of  conferring  orders."  There  was  no  form 
at  all  for  the  ordination  of  Deacons.^  The  Scottish 
Bishops  of  James  VI.  were  not  reordained  in  Eng- 
land.^ Even  the  Scottish  bishops  of  Charles  II.'s 
time,^  though  they  submitted  to  the  ceremony,  did 
so,  as  we  shall  see,  at  the  advice  of  Leighton,  on  the 
ground  that  all  such  matters  were  wholly  indifferent, 
and  with  one  exception  they  never  insisted  on  reor- 
daining  Scottish  ministers  ^  who  had  received  Pres- 
byterian ordination.  The  Prayer-book  throughout 
the  time  of  James  VI.  and  Charles  11.  was  never 
publicly  used,  except  during  the  short  time  that  the 
Princess  Anne  was  with  her  father  in  Edinburgh.^ 
The  Episcopalian  clergy  and  bishops  preached  and 
officiated  in  no  peculiar  dress,  or  else  generally  in 
black  gowns,  as  distinct  from  the  blue  gowns  and 
broad  blue  bonnets  of  the  Presbyterians.  This  is 
the  real  origin  of  "  Black  Prelacy  "  and  "  True  Blue 
Presbyterianism."  "^  There  was  an  Episcopal  chapel  in 
Forfarshire,  where  till  quite  recently  the  clergyman 
always  officiated  in  black,  and  black  serge  was  the 
only  ecclesiastical  vestment  known  at  the  beginning 
of  this  century  in  the  Episcopal  Church  of  Glasgow. 

1  It  seems  that  perhaps  the  omis-  bishops,  who  himself,  though  he  had 
sion  was  corrected  under  Charles  I.  received  episcopal  consecration,  had 
Scottish  Liturgies,  p.  lix.  never  received  episcopal  ordination. 

2  Grub,  ii.  322-324,  368.  ^  Grub,  iii.  218;  see  Lecture  III. 

3  Ibid.  ii.  296.  ^  Cunningham,  ii.  250. 

*  Ibid.  iii.  128.  Tillotson  was  "^  I  owe  this  to  the  kindness  of 
ordained    priest   by  one  of   these    Dr.  Crawfurd  of  Edinburgh. 


I 


Lect.  I.  ITS  PERSECUTIONS.  51 

The  Communion  was  received  sitting.  The  sign  of 
the  cross  was  not  used  in  baptism.  Extemporaneous 
instead  of  liturgical  prayers  were  almost  everywhere 
used.  The  requirement  of  tokens  for  the  Eucharist^ 
which  was  enjoined  in  the  Scottish  Prayer-book,  is 
still  in  force  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  as  well  as  in 
the  older  Episcopalian  congregations  of  the  north. 
In  short,  of  all  that  now  constitutes  to  the  outward 
eye  the  main  characteristics  of  Scottish  Episcopacy^ 
not  one  existed  before  the  besrinnino;  of  the  eiffhfc- 
eenth  century.^  The  Episcopalian  clergy,  after  the- 
Revolution,  were  quite  willing  to  officiate  in  manses- 
and  churches  side  by  side  with  their  Presbyterian, 
brethren.^  The  nearly  equal  division  of  the  country 
between  them  at  that  time,  and  the  near  approxima- 
tion to  an  arrangement  which  might  have  included 
both  within  the  same  Church,  and  which  would  prob- 
ably have  succeeded  but  for  purely  political  difficul- 
ties,^ show  how  superj&cial  after  all  were  the  differ- 
ences which  parted  them.  The  earliest  examples  of 
the  intrusion*  of  pastors  by  imperious  patrons  on  un- 
willing congregations  were  not  of  Episcopalian  or 
even  Erastian  incumbents  on  Presbyterian  congre* 
gations,  but  of  Presbyterian  pastors  on  Episcopalian 
congregations. 

There  remains  to  be  considered  the  final  aspect  of 
the  Episcopal  Church,  when  it  was  proscribed  its  stat«ofl 

.  •       1       1     '        ft*  -111  persecu- 

in  its  turn  as  it  had  itself  proscribed  the   cutioa. 
Covenanters.     In   one  sense,   indeed,  it   has   never 
entirely  lost  its  legal  position.     It  was,  and  is  still 

1  Burton,  viii.  467.  the  case  argued  in  Life  of  Ruther- 

2  Leighton,  as  we  shall  see,  was  ford,  p.  38. 
Presbyterian  by  ordination ;  Ruther-        3  Grub,  iii.  311-318. 
ford  may  have  been,  perhaps  was,        *  Burton,  viii.  220. 
Episcopalian  by  ordination.      See 


62  THE  MODERN  EPISCOPAL   CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

entitled  the  "Episcopal  Communion,  protected  and 
allowed  by  an  Act  passed  in  the  tenth  year  of  the 
reign  of  Queen  Anne,  chapter  seven."  In  later  years 
it  received  a  small  state  endowment,  only  recently 
withdrawn  from  it.  But  during  and  after  the  Stuart 
Rebellion,  it  was  visited  by  a  hand  almost  as  heavy 
as  that  which  had  rested  on  the  Presbyterians  at  the 
close  of  the  preceding  century ;  and  it  is  a  salutary 
warning  to  mutual  forbearance  when  we  read  the 
very  same  adventures  in  the  very  same  caves  and 
moss  hags  —  the  very  same  apprehension  of  the  lap- 
wings hovering  near  the  place  of  their  concealment, 
as  had  breathed  through  the  legends  of  the  Camero- 
nians.^ 

From  necessity,  as  well  as  from  inclination,  more 
and  more  the  Episcopal  communion  shrank  from  its 
public  place  in  the  nation,  except  in  the  short  periods 
when  the  Stuart  Princes  were  for  the  moment  in  the 
ascendant.  Carubbers  Close  was  their  metropolitan 
church.  "  I  have  been  looking,"  said  Dundee,  "  for 
the  primate  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  cannot  find 
him  ;  he  belongs  to  the  Kirk  Invisible."  "  I  belong," 
gays  Pleydell  in  "  Guy  Mannering,"  "  to  the  suffering 
Episcopal  Church  of  Scotland,  which  is  now  —  happily 
—  the  shadow  of  a  shade."  ^ 

But  there  are  three  points  during  this  dark  and  se- 
cluded period  in  which  it  was  still  thoroughly  Scottish 
and  thoroughly  national. 

First,  it  shared  to  the  full  that  peculiarity  of  Scot- 
1.  Its  tish  religion  which  will  appear  most  distinctly 
visions.       in  my  next  lecture,  —  its  violent    divisions 

1  Lord  Medwyn's  Life  of  Lord  than  150  clergy  in  communion  with 
Pitsligo,  p.  32.  the  Scottish  bishops.     Grub,  iv.  32. 

2  In  1745  there  were  not  more 


Lect.  I.  ITS  PECUT.IARITIES.  53 

on  points  of  the  smallest  dimensions.  What  Burgh- 
ers and  Anti-Burghers,  Relief  and  Secession,  Old  and 
New  Lights  were  to  the  followers  of  John  Knox,  that 
the  long  disputes  of  Collegers^  and  Usagers,  of  old 
Episcopalians  and  new  Episcopalians,  of  the  Scottish 
and  the  English  Communion  Offices,  often  were  to 
the  followers  of  Laud  and  Sharpe.  No  ecclesiastical 
struggle,  except  that  of  the  rival  Popes,  has  more 
tried  the  Episcopal  system  than  that  in  the  month  of 
June,  1727,  in  Edinburgh,  when  the  bishops  of  the 
two  contending  parties  of  Collegers  and  Usagers 
strove  to  outdo  each  other  by  consecrating  and  de- 
posing rival  bishops,  so  as  to  secure  the  point  at  issue, 
"  if  not  by  equal  arguments,  yet  by  equal  numbers.^ 

Secondly,  there  was  the  antagonism  to  the  English 
Church  and  State.     This,  which  in  the  Puri-   ^  ^_ 
tans  was  produced  by  the  hostility  to  a  gov-  ["^the'^™ 
ernment  which  rejected  the  Covenant,  in  the  church 
Episcopalians  was  produced  by  the  hostility  ""'^  ^***®- 
to  a  government  which  rejected  the  divine  hereditary 
right  of  kino;s. 

In  the  time  of  the  Stuart  sovereigns,  the  Episco- 
palians of  Scotland  were  almost  as  Erastian  as  their 
English  brethren.  But  this  gradually  passed  away ; 
the  anti-Hanoverian  tendencies  of  the  Episcopal 
clergy  gradually  detached  them  from  their  ancient 
principles ;  and  the  "  Usagers  "  went  to  the  length  of 
throwing  aside  their  loyalty  to  King  James,  for 
which  their  brethren  the  "  Collegers  "  were  ready  to 
sacrifice  everything.  To  a  certain  degree  this  feeling 
has  lasted  almost  to  our  own  day.     The  memory  of 

1  See  Grub,  iii.  387  ;  iv.  21-29.  2  Skinner,   ii.    644,    645.      Cun- 

ningham, ii.  398.    Grub,  iv.  6,  6. 


64  THE  MODERN  EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

the  massacre  of  Glencoe  still  lives  in  the  Episcopalian 
inhabitants  of  the  fatal  valley,  when  it  has  expired 
elsewhere.  Jacobitism  and  not  Liberalism  was  and 
is  the  root  of  the  Episcopalian  jealousy  of  state  in- 
terference.^ It  was  with  the  utmost  reluctance  that, 
in  the  last  century,  the  Scottish  Episcopalians  could 
be  induced  to  accept  the  English  Articles,^  or  to  hear 
the  name  of  George  III.  in  the  English  Liturgy  ;  and 
no  Presbyterians  could  have  been  more  alarmed  than 
they  were  at  the  encroachments  of  the  English 
clergy.^  One  of  the  solemn  articles  of  agreement 
with  the  American  bishop  of  Connecticut  was,  that 
the  members  of  his  church,  when  in  Scotland,  should 
hold  no  communion  in  sacred  offices  with  those  "  per- 
sons who,  under  the  pretense  of  ordination  by  an 
English  or  an  Irish  bishop,  do,  or  shall  take  upon 
them  to  officiate  as  clergymen  in  any  part  of  the 
national  Church  of  Scotland,  and  whom  the  Scottish 
bishops  cannot  help  looking  upon  as  schismatical  * 
intruders." 

This  leads  me  to  the  third  characteristic,  which 
3  jt^  has  found  its  home  more  completely  in  the 
romance,  gcottish  Episcopaliaus  than  in  any  other  of 
the  Church  of  Scotland  more  strictly  so  called,  when, 
from  being  an  aspiring  or  a  dominant  Church,  it 
became  a  vanquished  and  persecuted  communion ; 
when,  for  its  attachment  to  the  exiled  Stuarts,  it 
became  the  Church  of  the  Jacobites  and  Nonjurors. 

1  It  was  not  without  reason  that  these  "  Letters  "  in  determining  the 

when  a  celebrated  English  divine  future    theological    career    of   Dr. 

wished  to  express  his  covert  hostil-  Newman  is  powerfully  described  in 

ity  to  the  doctrine  of  the  connection  his  "  Apologia,"  p.  70. 

of  Church  and    State,   he   did    so  2  Grub,  iv.  101,  115. 

under  the  assumed  name  of  "  a  Scot-  3  Ibid.  iv.  1 74. 

tish  Episcopalian."     The  effect  of  *  Ibid.  iv.  94. 


Lect.  I.  ITS  PECULIARITIES.  65 

No  history  of  any  European  state  has  been  so  ro- 
mantic as  that  of  Scotland.  Whatever  England  has 
to  show  of  early  romance  pales  before  the  stories  of 
Robert  Bruce  and  James  V.  What  English  abbey 
can  in  this  respect  compete  with  Melrose  ?  what 
chapel  with  Rosslyn  ?  what  city  with  Edinburgh  ? 
What  are  the  earliest  ejBTorts  of  English  poetry  — 
what  are  the  triads  of  Wales,  or  the  early  songs  of 
Ireland,  compared  with  the  romantic  charm  (what- 
ever be  their  other  merits  or  demerits)  of  the  poems 
of  Ossian  ?  It  is  this  peculiar  embodiment  of  Scot- 
tish character  that  Shakespeare  has  reproduced  in 
"Macbeth."  Whether  or  not  he  was  in  that  band 
of  actors  who  came  to  amuse  King  James  VI.  at 
Aberdeen,  it  is  certain  that  he  has  caught  the  gen- 
eral air  and  tone  of  Scottish  scenery  and  Scottish 
history :  the  blasted  heath,  extending  for  leagues 
alonoj  the  coast  of  Forres ;  the  witches  lingerinsr 
in  Scotland  long  after  they  had  died  out  in  the 
rest  of  Europe ;  the  castles,  haunted  by  deeds  of 
blood,  and  by  dead  men's  ghosts ;  the  prophetic 
dooms  of  royal  families  and  great  houses ;  this  is 
the  very  genius  of  Scotland,  because  it  belongs  to 
that  weird,  uncanny,  magic  world  which  has  always 
enveloped  Scotland  as  in  a  mist  of  wonders.  And 
when  that  "  meet  Nurse  for  a  poetic  child  "  produced 
a  second  Shakespeare  of  her  own,  this  was  the  at- 
mosphere in  which  he  was  born  and  bred.  Walter 
Scott  had  many  greater  qualities,  which  I  shall  de- 
scribe before'  I  conclude  these  lectures;  but  it  was 
this  "  wizard  note  "  of  the  mediaeval  past,  with  all 
its  spells  and  glamours,  that  first  woke  "  the  Harp 
of  the  North  "  to  its  special  task. 


56  THE   MODERN  EPISCOPAL   CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

It  is  this  element  of  which  so  large  a  share  is  re- 
flected in  the  modern  Episcopalian  Church  of  Scot- 
land. There  are  three  great  historic  names  which 
specially  represent  this  passion,  and  which  all  belong 
to  the  stream  of  Episcopalian  tradition.  One  is  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots.  Hers  is  a  story  which  has  become 
thoroughly  national,  yet  certainly  not  Presbyterian 
—  not  even  Protestant.  To  John  Knox  and  Andrew 
Melville  the  name  of  the  ill-fated  Queen  suggests  the 
idea  of  a  perfidious  and  abandoned  murderess.  It 
is  by  the  ancient  Catholic,  by  the  modern  Episcopa- 
lian party  in  Scotland,  that  the  fire  of  veneration  for 
the  unfortunate  Mary  has  been  kept  alive.  The  next 
is  Dundee.^  The  interest  which  gathers  round  the 
last  exploits  of  Claverhouse  —  which  glorifies  the 
Pass  of  Killikrankie,  and  which  has  enkindled  all  the 
fury  of  chivalrous  defense  in  his  behalf,  even  within 
our  own  time,  is  purely  and  exclusively  Episcopalian. 
He  is  the  hero  of  the  fallen  cause.  He  was  lamented 
by  the  Episcopalian  party  as  the  last  of  the  Grahams, 
the  last  of  the  Scots,  the  last  (in  their  eyes)  of  all 
that  was  greatest  in  his  native  country.^  The  third 
is  Charles  Edward.  His  career  is  not  only  the  last 
great  romance  of  Scotland,  it  is  almost  the  last  ro- 
mance of  Europe.  Round  his  name  —  round  his 
career  —  cling  the  last  traditions  of  Highland  fidelity, 
of  mediaeval  adventure,  of  soul-stirring  ballad ;  and 
they  were  interwoven  with  the  innermost  fibres  of 
the  Scottish  Episcopal  Church  in  the  eighteenth 
century. 

No  doubt  each  of  these  is  but  a  questionable  idol. 

1  He  is  said  to  have  been  the  first       2  Scott,  History   of  Scotland,  ii. 
intelligent  admirer  of  Ossian.    Bur-    115. 
ton,  viii.  104. 


Lect.  I.  ITS  PECULIARITIES.  57 

The  church  which  worshipped  at  the  shrine  of  Mary 
Stuart,  of  Claverhouse,  and  of  Charles  Edward,  could 
hardly  be  said  to  have  reached  the  highest  ideal  of 
Christian  excellence.  In  the  whole  Stuart  and  Jaco- 
bite cause  there  was  (as  every  reader  of  "  Waverley  "" 
may  see)  a  worldly,  weak,  and  trivial  side.  But 
there  was  also  a  noble,  a  chivalrous,  a  poetic  side ; 
and  of  this  the  Episcopalian  gentry  and  the  Episco- 
palian clergy  were  the  chief  depositaries.^  Who 
that  had  ever  seen  the  delightful  castle  of  Fingask, 
explored  its  inexhaustible  collection  of  Jacobite  rel- 
ics, known  its  Jacobite  inmates,  and  heard  its  Jac- 
obite songs,  did  not  feel  himself  transported  to  an 
older  world,  with  the  fond  remembrance  of  a  past 
age,  of  a  lost  love,  of  a  dear  though  vanquished 
cause  ?  Who  is  the  Scotsman  —  who  is  the  Presby- 
terian that  is  not  moved  by  the  outburst  of  Jacobite, 
Episcopalian  enthusiasm  which  enkindled  the  last 
flicker  of  expiring  genius,  when  Walter  Scott  mur- 
mured the  lay  of  Prince  Charlie  on  the  hills  of  Pau- 
silippo,  and  stood  wrapped  in  silent  devotion  ^  before 
the  tomb  of  the  Stuarts  in  St.  Peter. 

Let  me,  in  parting  from  this  period  of  Scottish 
history,  take  two  examples  of  its  peculiar  fruits. 
No  church  is  worth  celebrating  which  has  not  borne 
some  choice  manifestation  of  the  Christian  life. 
Every  church,  however  limited,  is  worth  describing, 
which  has  borne  any  such  as,  humanly  speaking, 
we  should  not  have  had  but  for  its  influence. 

One  is  a  layman,  Alexander   Forbes  —  Lord  Pit- 

1  Let  me  also  name,  in  connection  guished  of  whom  have  have  been 

with  these  same  subjects,  the  noble  Episcopalians, 

band  of  Scottish  antiquaries  living  2  See  Lord  Houghton's  Poems, 
and  dead,  some  of  the  most  distin- 


58  THE  MODERN  EPISCOPAL   CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

sligo.  If,  as  I  have  heard  it  said,  he  is  the  original 
Lord  Pit-  of  ^^®  "  Baron  of  Bradwardine,"  he  is  suffi- 
siigo.  ciently  known  to  all  the  world.    But  we  can- 

not imagine  a  more  gracious  and  attractive  specimen 
bf  that  type  of  character  of  which  I  have  been  speak- 
ing, than  is  presented  to  us  in  the  little  volume  pub- 
lished by  his  kinsman,  Lord  Medwyn.  His  hair- 
breadth escapes  I  leave  to  be  read  in  those  pages. 
But  his  kindly,  generous  feeling  towards  his  oppo- 
nents, the  mystical  piety  which  he  had  learned  in 
France  from  Fenelon  and  Madame  Guyon,  the  unos- 
tentatious sincerity  which  made  his  presence  at  the 
Episcopal  chapel  the  signal  for  a  general  sympathy 
of  devotion,  are  the  true  glory  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  of  that  time.  When,  in  spite  of  his  age  and 
infirmities,  he  determined  to  join  Charles  Edward 
at  Aberdeen,  he  believed  that  he  was  simply  obeying 
the  call  of  God.  When  the  little  party  of  horsemen 
assembled,  he  rode  to  the  front,  took  off  his  hat,  and, 
looking  up  to  heaven,  said,  "  Lord,  Thou  knowest 
our  cause  is  just.  March,  gentlemen."  "  It  seemed," 
says  one  who  was  present  when  he  joined  the  army, 
"  as  if  religion,  virtue,  and  justice  were  entering  the 
camp  with  this  venerable  old  man."  ^ 

If  Lord  Pitsligo  may  be  taken  as  a  choice  speci- 
Bishop  ^^^  of  ^^^  old  Episcopalian  laity,  Bishop 
Jolly.  Jolly  may  be  taken  as  a  choice  specimen  of 
the  old  Episcopalian  clergy.  He  was  a  man,  of 
whom  it  was  wittily  observed  by  one  of  his  abler  and 
younger  brethren  still  living,  "  that  he  had  a  reason 
for  nothing,  and  an  authority  for  everything ;  "  who, 
when  he  was  asked  at  the  beginning  of  the  stir  oc- 

1  Grub,  iv.  190. 


Lect.  I.  ITS   PRESENT  MISSION.  59 

casioned  by  the  Oxford  Tracts,  what  he  thought  of 
the  Reformation,  said  that  "  he  had  not  come  down 
so  far  in  his  regular  course  of  Ecclesiastical  history." 
"  You  go,"  said  an  x\merican  traveller,  "  from  the 
extremity  of  Britain  to  see  the  Falls  of  Niagara,  and 
think  yourselves  amply  rewarded.  If  I  had  come 
from  America  to  Aberdeen,  and  seen  nothing  but 
Bishop  Jolly,  as  I  saw  him  for  two  days,  I  should  hold 
myself  fully  rewarded.  In  our  new  country  we  have 
no  such  men ;  and  I  could  not  have  imagined  such 
without  seeing  him.  The  race,  I  fear,  is  expired  or 
expiring  even  among  you."  His  departure  was  like 
his  life.  The  last  book  which  he  held  in  his  hand  on 
the  evening  before  his  death,  was  Sutton's  treatise, 
"Disce  Mori;"  and  he  was  found,  alone,  with  his 
hands  crossed  on  his  breast,  and  his  countenance  se- 
rene in  death. 

Doubtless  the  primitive  simplicity,  the  gentleness, 
the  quiet  retiring  holiness  which  so  struck  the  trans- 
atlantic traveller  in  the  aged  bishop,  was  shared  by 
many  others  in  the  Episcopalian  households  of  Scot- 
land high  and  low.  Perhaps  of  this  whole  type  of 
character  it  may  be  said,  that  it  is  expired  or  ex- 
piring. But  it  was  a  precious  and  peculiar  spectacle 
in  those  rough  rude  times ;  it  is  for  us  at  least  to 
cherish  the  memory  of  it. 

IV.  These,  then,  were  some  of  the  latest  peculiar- 
ities of  the  Episcopal  Church  of  Scotland  in  the  cen- 
tury that  is  gone.  I  would  venture  to  say  a  few 
words  on  its  peculiarity,  rather,  let  me  say,  its  pecul- 
iar mission,  in  this.  It  has  ceased  to  be  half  Presby- 
terian, as  it  was  in  the  seventeenth  century.  It  has 
ceased  to  be  Jacobite,  as  it  was  in  the  eighteenth. 


60  THE   MODERN  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH.  Lect.  I. 

It  is  now,  for  the  most  part,  and  for  practical  pur- 
poses, a  branch  of  the  English  Church  in  Scotland ; 
for  the  benefit  of  the  English  settlers,  or  of  Scots- 
men with  an  English  education.  Native  congrega- 
tions of  Episcopalians  doubtless  exist,  the  descendants 
of  those  Jacobites  and  Nonjurors  of  whom  I  have 
just  spoken.  Individuals  have  migrated  from  Scot- 
tish Presbyterian  families,  under  the  changed  circum- 
stances of  later  times.  But  the  larger  section  of  the 
Scottish  Episcopal  communion  derive  their  impor- 
tance from  the  new  influences  that  I  have  indicated, 
and  from  the  connection,  once  so  much  dreaded,  but 
now  so  much  encouraged,  between  themselves  and 
the  Church  of  England. 

In  this,  as  we  have  seen,  lies  the  true  continuity 
of  its  connection  with  the  historical  past ;  in  this  lies 
its  interest  in  the  coming  future.  The  increased  in- 
tercourse between  the  two  countries  has  increased 
and  fostered  its  strength,  its  numbers,  and  its  wealth. 
If  it  were  so  ill-advised  as  to  make  use  of  this  its 
new  situation  to  claim  in  Scotland  an  exclusive  and 
national  position  ;  if  it  were  to  affect  to  disdain  and 
ignore  the  Church  of  Scotland,  by  the  side  of  which 
it  has  been  allowed  freely  to  expand  itself;  if  it 
were  to  employ  its  relations  towardg  England  to  di- 
vide the  Scottish  rich  from  the  Scottish  poor,  the  past 
from  the  present  history  of  Scottish  religion ;  if  it 
were  to  lend  itself  as  a  field  for  the  eccentricities  of  ^ 
disaffected  English  clergy,  then,  indeed,  we  might 
look  back  with  regret  to  the  time  when  the  greatest 
of  its  members  rejoiced  to  think  that  it  was  "  but 

1  It  was  but  fair  to  say  that  on    by   the    leaders    of  the  Episcopal 
the  two  chief  occasions  when  this    Church  itself, 
attempt  was  made,  it  was  frustrated 


Lect.  I.  ITS   PRESENT  MISSION.  61 

the  shadow  of  a  shade."  But  if,  following  the  coun- 
sels^ of  its  most  venerable  and  most  gifted  leaders, 
it  were  to  regard  itself  as  a  supplement  'to  the  needs 
of  the  National  Church  ;  if  it  should  be  willing 
"  to  interchange  with  that  Church  all  good  offices, 
whether  of  charity  or  religion,  without  compromise 
of  its  own  principles  ; "  if  it  should  aid  the  gener- 
ous efforts  of  the  National  Church  to  promote  that 
intercourse  ;  if  it  should  thus  encourage  in  Scotland 
the  knowledge  that  Christianity  can  exist  outside  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  as  well  as  within  it;  if  it 
can  keep  alive  in  Scotland,  by  its  own  example,  a 
sense  of  English  art,  of  English  toleration,  and  of 
English  literature ;  if  it  continued  to  discharge  the 
office  which  from  time  to  time  it  has  fulfilled  during 
its  simpler  and  humbler  days,  of  presenting  Christian 
life  and  Christian  truth  under  that  softer,  gentler, 
more  refined  aspect,  which  its  native  Gaelic,^  and  its 
foreign  English  elements  have  alike  conspired  to  pro- 
duce, then  the  Church  of  Scotland  may  hail  in  it  a 
not  unimportant  auxiliary  for  the  transmission  of  the 
same  beneficent  influences  from  our  southern  civili- 
zation that  were  once  conveyed  by  Queen  Margaret 
and  her  three  sons,  that  were  eagerly  cherished  by 
John  Knox,  and  that  were  desired  and,  in  great  meas- 
ure obtained,  by  the  eminent  statesmen  who  ce- 
mented the  union  of  the  two  Kingdoms. 

1  See  especially  the  close  of  the  2  For  this  singular  delicacy  of  the 

20th   edition    of   Reminiscences  of  old  Celtic  race,  see  Bishop  Ewing's 

Scottish  Life  and  Character,  by  Dean  Celtic  Church  of  the  West  Highlands, 

Ramsay,  pp.  320-325.  p.  8. 


LECTURE  II. 


THE  CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND,  THE   COVENANT,  AND 
THE   SECEDING   CHURCHES. 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  INSTITUTE, 
JANUARY  9,   1872, 


LECTURE  II. 

THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND,  THE  COVENANT,  AND  THE 
SECEDING  CHURCHES. 

In  this  and  the  ensuing  lectures  I  proceed  to  speak 
of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  properly  so  called.  In 
the  mouth  of  an  English  Churchman,  no  less  than  of 
an  impartial  historian,  I  need  not  say  that  this  can 
only  mean  the  Church  as  established  by  law.  It  is 
this  for  which  every  English  Churchman  is  asked  to 
pray,  by  the  canons  of  the  English  Convocation, 
which  enjoin  that  prayers  are  to  be  offered  up  "for 
Christ's  Holy  Catholic  Church,  that  is,  for  the  whole 
congregation  of  Christians  dispersed  throughout  the 
world,  especially  for  the  Churches  of  England,  Scot- 
land, and  Ireland."  "  There  can  be  no  doubt,"  says 
the  candid  and  accurate  annalist  of  Scottish  Episco- 
pacy, "  that  the  framers  of  this  have  meant  to  ac- 
knowledge the  northern  ecclesiastical  establishment, 
at  that   time  Presbyterian,  as    a    Christian  The 

^^  1  TTT-   11  •  /»       1         Church  of 

Church With  the   exception  oi    the  Scotland  is 

.  the  Na- 

Roman  Catholics,  it  was  the  only  Christian  tionaiEs 

...  tablished 

communion  then  existing  m  bcotland,  and  Church, 
questions  regarding  any  other  state  of  matters  than 
that  actually  before  them  could  not  have  occurred  to 
the  Convocation."  ^    It  is  this  also  which  is  recognized 
in  the  most  solemn  form  by  the  British  Constitution. 

1  See  the  discussion  on  the  Canons  of  1603  in  Grub,  ii.  282. 
5 


66  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  II. 

The  ver}^  first  declaration  which  the  sovereign  makes 

—  taking  precedence  even  of  the  recognition  of  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  English  Church  and  nation, 
which  are  postponed  till  the  day  of  the    coronation 

—  is  that  in  which,  on  the  day  of  the  accession, 
the  sovereign  declares  that  he  or  she  will  maintain 
inviolate  and  intact  the  Church  of  Scotland.  That 
which  was  signed  by  her  Majesty  may  be  seen  in 
the  Register  House  of  Edinburgh,  and  has  the 
peculiar  interest  of  being  the  first  signature  of  her 
name  as  Queen.  There  is  a  large  blank  left,  in  the 
doubt  which  was  then  not  yet  solved,  whether  one  or 
more  of  her  names  would  be  used,  and  the  single 
name  therefore  stands  —  alone  of  all  her  signatures 

—  in  a  space  too  ample  for  the  word ;  and  imme- 
diately following  comes,  after  the  signature  of  the 
Princes  of  the  Blood  Royal,  the  name  of  the  dignified 
and  cautious  Primate  who  then  filled  the  see  of  Can- 
terbury. In  the  Act  of  Union  itself,  which  prescribes 
this  declaration,  the  same  securities  are  throughout 
exacted  for  the  Church  of  Scotland  as  were  exacted 
for  the  Church  of  England ;  and  it  is  on  record  that, 
when  that  act  was  passed,  and  some  question  arose 
amongst  the  Peers  as  to  the  propriety  of  so  complete 
a  recognition  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  the  then 
Primate  of  all  England,  the  "  old  rock,"  as  he  was 
called.  Archbishop  Tenison,  rose,  and  said  with  a 
weight  which  carried  all  objections  before  it,  "  The 
narrow  notions  of  all  churches  have  been  their  ruin. 
I  believe  that  the  Church  of  Scotland,  though  not  so 
perfect  as  ours,  is  as  true  a  Protestant  Church  as 
the  Church  of  England."  ^ 

1  Carstairs'  Slate  Papers,  739,  760. 


Lect.  II.  SENSE   OF   THE   WORD.  67 

No  Scotsman,  no  Englishman  can  see  the  meeting 
of  the  General  Assembly  in  Edinburgh  without  feel- 
ing that  it  is  the  chief  national  institution  of  the 
northern  kingdom.  No  other  ecclesiastical  assembly 
in  the  realm  meets  with  such  a  solemn  and  distinct 
recognition,  with  such  a  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
royalty,  with  such  a  well-ordered  and  well-under- 
stood tradition  of  rights  and  privileges  and  duties. 

What  is  thus  legally  acknowledged  receives  a  yet 
further  confirmation  in  the  common  parlance  even 
of  unwilling  witnesses.  It  is  sometimes  the  custom 
of  English  Churchmen  and  Scottish  Episcopalians,  to 
distinguish  in  Scotland  between  "  the  Church "  and 
"  the  Kirk,"  meaning  by  the  former  the  Episcopalian, 
and  by  the  latter  the  Presbyterian  system.  It  is 
difficult  to  imagine  a  more  complete  testimony  to 
the  national  character  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
than  this  surrender  to  it  of  the  true  Scottish  name 
of  the  Church  itself  The  "Kirk,"  whatever  the 
word  may  mean  in  English,  in  Scotland  means  "  the 
Church"  as  truly  as  Eglise  in  French,  or  Chicsa  in 
Italian.  To  speak  of  the  Presbyterian  community  as 
"  the  Kirk,"  and  the  Episcopalian  community  as  "  the 
Church,"  is  in  fact  to  say  that  the  Presbyterian  com- 
munity is  the  national  Church  of  Scotland,  and  the 
Episcopalian  community  an  offshoot  of  the  Church 
of  England. 

I  shall  therefore  not  hesitate  to  speak  of  "  the 
Church  of  Scotland  "  in  its  more  peculiar  and  proper 
sense,  as  that  which,  under  divers  changes,  has  set- 
tled down  into  the  great  Presbyterian  Church  of 
North  Britain. 

I  have,  however,  already  intimated,  that  I  thus  use 


68  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  II. 

the  word  the  more  readily  because,  in  a  certain  sense, 
it  embraces  all  the  various  branches  into  which  it  has 
at  times  been  divided,  and  because,  in  so  speaking, 
we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  one  of  the  most 
singular  features  of  the  Scottish  Presbyterian  Church, 
namely,  its  marvelous  outward  uniformity.  The 
Church  of  England,  no  doubt,  in  the  largest  legal 
sense,  includes  alike  all  Englishmen,  whether  con- 
forming or  non-conforming ;  but  whereas  in  England 
every  branch  of  the  vast  religious  community,  so 
called,  has  its  own  peculiar  constitution  —  and  the 
Convocation,  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  the  Prayer- 
book  of  the  Established  Church ;  the  Conference  of 
the  Wesleyans,  with  its  "  Conferential "  books  ;  the 
Congregational  Union  of  the  Independents;  the 
monthly  meetings  of  the  Quakers  ;  —  whereas,  even 
in  the  Established  Church,  the  ritual,  in  spite  of  the 
Act  of  Uniformity,  varies  from  the  maiestic 

Its  unity.  z-i 

splendor  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  to  the  elab- 
orate ceremonial  of  St.  Alban's,  Holborn,  and  the 
simplicity  of  the  ordinary  parish  church  —  in  Scot- 
land, on  the  other  hand,  with  very  rare  exceptions, 
all  the  Presbyterian  communions  acknowledge  not 
only  the  same  Westminster  Confession,  the  same 
Directory,  the  same  Longer  and  Shorter  Catechisms, 
but  also,  the  same  form  of  Presbytery,  Kirk  Session, 
and  General  Assembly,  the  same  dress,  the  same 
order  of  Divine  worship,  the  same  gestures  in  prayer 
and  praise,  the  same  form  in  the  sacramental  ordi- 
nances, the  same  observances  at  the  burial  of  the 
dead.  It  is  a  uniformity  which  Rome  might  have 
enjoined,  and  which  England  might  envy. 

But,  combined  with  this  phenomenon,  emerges  the 


Lect.  n.  ITS  DIVISIONS.  69 

not  less  curious  and  instructive  fact  that,  within 
this  outward  unity  has  arisen  an  amount  itgdivis- 
of  inward  diversity  and  estrangement  which  ^°°^" 
England,  with  her  multifarious  sects,  and  even  Rome, 
with  the  internecine  war  of  her  internal  dissensions, 
can  hardly  equal  or  surpass.  This  is  a  fact  which, 
under  any  circumstances,  is  full  of  interest. 

Every  Church,  whether  Catholic  or  Protestant, 
may  always  learn  a  useful  lesson  from  the  contem- 
plation of  any  instance  which  brings  out  the  essen- 
tial difference  between  external  and  dofjmatic  union 
on  the  one  side,  and  inward  spiritual  union  on  the 
other  side.  The  Church  of  Scotland  is,  in  this  re- 
spect, like  a  city  set  on  a  hill  for  the  wonder  of  all 
the  churches  of  Europe,  even  before  we  descend  into 
the  causes  and  consequences  of  the  phenomenon.  It 
is  this  task  which  we  now  undertake. 

The  general  fact  is  that,  within  the  National 
Church  of  Scotland,  as  within  the  character  of  the 
Scottish  people,  there  are  two  separate  tendencies : 
one  of  an  uniting,  comprehensive  character,  which 
I  shall  consider  at  length  in  my  third  lecture ;  the 
other  of  a  dividing,  antagonistic  character,  of  which 
I  shall  treat  in  the  present. 

It  will  be  my  object,  therefore,  to  penetrate  be- 
neath the  surface  of  the  Presbyterian  platform  which 
the  Scottish  Church  has  in  common  with  the  Prot- 
estant Churches  of  Geneva,  Holland,  France,  and  Ger- 
many—  to  discover,  if  possible,  those  elements  of 
the  Scottish  national  character  which  form,  as  it 
were,  the  backbone  of  its  ecclesiastical  constitution, 
and  which,  though  appearing  from  time  to  time  in 
the  Established,  or  even  the  Episcopalian  Church,  are 


70  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  H. 

best  seen  in  those  outlying  sections  which,  claiming 
each  to  be  the  Church  of  Scotland,  exhibit  in  the  most 
salient,  but  therefore  the  most  patent  and  unmistak- 
able forms,  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  Scot- 
tish religion.  As  in  speaking  of  Scottish  Episcopac}'', 
so  in  speaking  of  Scottish  Presbyterianism,  it  will  be 
understood  that  I  dwell  not  on  the  general  life  and 
belief  common  to  all  Christian  Churches  alike,  but  on 
those  peculiarities  which  distinguish  each  from  each. 
I.  The  first  feature  then  which  marks  the  Scottish 
National      religiou  of  the  last  three  centuries  is  its  stub- 

independ-       ,  .      ^  -, 

ence.  bom  mdepeudence. 

When  James  VI.  saw  in  London  Mrs.  "Welsh,  the 
daughter  of  John  Knox,  he  asked  her  how  many 
bairns  her  father  had  left,  and  whether  they  were 
lads  or  lasses.  She  answered  "  Three,"  and  that  they 
were  all  lasses.  "  God  be  thanked  !  "  said  the  king, 
lifting  up  both  his  hands ;  "  for  if  they  had  been  three 
lads,  I  never  could  have  brooked  my  three  kingdoms 
in  peace."  ^ 

The  feelino^  of  King;  James  towards  John  Knox 
and  his  actual  children  may  well  have  been  felt  at 
times  by  many  reasonable  men  towards  his  spiritual 
children.  Had  each  of  the  three  kingdoms  been  in- 
habited by  a  Church  as  sturdy  and  as  unmanageable 
as  that  which  took  up  its  abode  in  Scotland,  it  may 
be  easily  believed  that  the  rulers  of  Great  Britain 
would  have  had  no  light  task  before  them. 

This  independence  of  the  Scottish  Church  belongs 
in  fact  to  the  independence  of  the  Scottish  race.  It 
was  nurtured,  if  not  produced,  by  the  long  struggle 
first  of  Wallace  and  then  of  Bruce,  which  gave  to  the 

1  Cunningham,  ii.  43. 


Lect.il  its  independence.  71 

whole  character  of  the  people  a  defiant  self-reliance, 
such  as,  perhaps,  is  equally  impressed  on  no  other 
kingdom  in  Europe.  The  patriotism  and  the  eccle- 
siastical exclusiveness  of  Davie  Deans  in  the  "  Heart 
of  Midlothian,"  flow  in  the  same  indivisible  channel. 
"Well,  said  that- judicious  Christian  worthy,  John 
Livingston  ....  that,  hovvbeit  he  thought  Scotland 
a  Gehenna  of  wickedness  when  he  was  at  home,  yet 
when  he  was  abroad  he  accounted  it  as  a  paradise. 
For  the  evils  of  Scotland  he  found  everywhere,  and 
the  ojood  of  Scotland  he  found  nowhere."  And  when 
Jeanie  Deans  shrinks  from  giving  up  the  slayer  of 
Porteous,  it  is  because  her  religious  education  had 
made  her  regard  it  as  an  act  of  treason  against  the 
independence  of  Scotland.  "  With  the  iimaticism  of 
the  Scottish  Presbyterians  there  was  always  mingled 
a  glow  of  national  feeling,  and  she  trembled  at  the 
idea  of  her  name  being  handed  down  to  posterity 
with  that  of  the  '  fause  Menteith.'  "  Burns's  imagi- 
nary address  of  Bruce  at  Banockburn  is  but  the 
counterpart  of  the  genuine  song  of  the  Covenant- 
ers at  Dunselaw  :  — 

"  That  all  the  warld  may  see 
There  's  nane  in  the  right  but  we, 
Of  the  auld  Scottish  nation." 

The  badge  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  —  the  Burn- 
ing Bush,  "  burning  but  not  consumed  "  —  is  as  true 
a  type  of  Scotland's  inexpugnable  defense  of  her 
ancient  liberties,  as  it  was  of  the  ancient  Jewish 
Church  and  people  on  their  emergence  from  Egyptian 
bondage.  And  so  the  early  history  of  the  Scottish 
Presbyterian  Church  has  been  one  long  struggle  of 
dogged  resistance  to  superior  power.    "  Scotland  must 


72  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  IL 

be  rid  of  Scotland,  unless  we  gain  deliverance,"  was 
the  dying  speech  of  the  martyr  Renwick.^ 

Many  of  the  Scottish  sects  have  in  later  times 
drifted  into  the  doctrine  of  an  imaginary  separation 
from  the  state  and  nation.  Nothing  can  be  more 
unjust  to  themselves,  or  more  untrue  to  history. 
Their  independence  is  as  secular,  as  political,  as  na- 
tional as  ever  was  the  compliance  of  the  most  lati- 
tudinarian  of  Erastians.  It  is  this  antique  splendor 
which  casts  a  halo  round  the  Scottish  struggle  for 
independence,  even  when  we  least  approve  of  it. 
It  was  magnificent  in  the  struggle  of  John  Knox 
against  all  the  fascinations  of  Queen  Mary.  It  was 
magnificent  in  the  struggle  of  Andrew  Melville 
against  James  VI.  It  was  magnificent,  even  if  some- 
what grotesque,  in  the  struggle  of  the  whole  people 
against  Laud  and  Charles  I.  It  was  magnificent  in 
the  still  more  fiery  struggle  of  the  Covenanters 
against  Claverhouse  and  Lauderdale.  It  was  mag- 
nificent when,  passing  over  into  the  Episcopalian 
Church,  it  strove  against  William  III.  at  Killikran- 
kie,  or  against  George  II.  at  Prestonpans  and  Cullo- 
den.  It  magnificently  combined  both  the  extreme 
Episcopalians  and  the  extreme  Presbyterians  in  its 
unavailing  ^  protests  against  the  endeavors  of  the 
wisest  statesmen  of  England  and  Scotland  to  bring 
about  the  union  of  the  two  countries.  It  was  ma^- 
nificent  even  when  carried  to  a  pitch  of  extrava- 
gance of  dissent  unequaled  by  any  other  nation  in 
the  various  entrenchments   occupied   by  the   Cove- 

1  Wodrow.  tlie  course  of  lectures  at  the  Phil- 

2  See  the  lively  description  of  osophical  Institute,  in  1871,  was 
this  opposition  in  the  brilliant  lec-    opened  by  Lord  Rosebery. 

lure  on  "  The  Union,"  with  which 


Lect.  II.  ITS   INDEPENDENCE.  73 

nanters,  by  the  Secession,  by  the  Relief,  by  the  Old 
Lights,  by  the  New  Lights,  by  the  Collegers,  by  the 
Usagers,  by  the  Burghers,  by  the  Anti-burghers,  by 
the  Free  Church,  and  by  the  United  Presbyterians, 
against  the  Established  Church,  and  against  each 
other,  in  every  one  of  the  contests  in  which  each 
separating  communion  maintained  that  it,  and  it 
alone,  was  the  true  Church  of  Scotland. 

The  main  peculiarity  of  dissent  in  Scotland  has 
been  that  it  was  not  properly  dissent  at  all,  and  that 
it  earnestly  repudiated  the  name.  English  Noncon- 
formists pride  themselves  on  their  nonconformity  ; 
but  Scottish  Nonconformists  pride  themselves  on 
their  churchmanship.  In  this  respect  they  are  like 
the  Dissenters  of  Russia.  They  are,  indeed,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Russian  Dissenters,  the  most 
conservative  of  all  ecclesiastical  bodies.-^  They  looked 
not  forward  to  an  age  of  progress,  but  backward  to 
a  golden  age  of  purity  —  the  triumphant  Church 
from  1636  to  1680.  Their  claim  of  identity  with 
the  doctrine,  discipline,  and  worship  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland  was  the  very  cause  of  their  separation. 
They  seceded  not  from  the  Church  itself,  but  from 
the  majorities  of  the  Church,  "  oat  of  a  regard  to 
the  Church's  honor  and  faithfulness ;  and  their  bit- 
terness was  the  perverted  flow  of  love."  ^ 

By  one  of  those  strange  contradictions  which  we 
often  find  in  ecclesiastical  and  political  movements, 
these  elements,  which  in  their  own  nature  are  in 
the  highest  degree  retrogressive  and  conservative, 
have  become  mixed  up  with  what  is  called  a  Liberal 

1  Lectures  on  the  Eastern  Church.        2  Jnnes's  Law  of  Creeds  in  Scot- 
Lecture  XU.  land,  p.  246. 


74  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  H. 

movement;  and  the  cause  which  has  for  its  watch- 
words the  names  of  Freedom  and  Progress,  has  for 
its  weapons  the  sword  and  shield  of  the  narrowest 
of  all  beliefs,  and  the  most  retrograde  of  all  philoso- 
phies. Yet  there  still  lives  at  the  bottom  of  this 
tendency  of  the  Scottish  character  a  virtue,  most 
highly  to  be  valued,  most  necessary  for  these  times 
especially,  whether  in  the  ranks  of  Conservatives  or 
Liberals  ;  and  that  is  the  force  of  unyielding  convic- 
tion, the  courage  to  resist  external  pressure,  whether 
of  the  many  or  of  the  few ;  the  determination  of 
James  Fitz-James :  — 

"  Come  one,  come  all  —  this  rock  shall  fly 
From  its  firm  base  as  soon  as  I." 

All  honor  to  Scottish  Churchmen  for  the  stubborn- 
ness of  their  fight,  their  devotion  not  only  of  them- 
selves to  death,  but,  at  times,  even  to  absurdity,  for 
what  were  deemed  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  the 
sacredness  of  truth,  and  the  glory  of  Scotland. 

When  we  descend  from  the  general  grandeur  of 
the  cause  to  the  principles  at  stake,  the  story,  if  less 
imposing,  is  still  exceedingly  instructive. 

1.  There  are  three  features  of  these  Scottish  ec- 
Negative  clcsiastical  struggles  which  pervade  their 
character,  -^yijole  liistory.  Tlic  first  is  their  almost  en- 
tirely negative  character.  We  often  hear,  in  modern 
times,  of  the  evils  of  negative  theology.  It  is  an 
objection  which  is  sometimes  overstrained,  for  in 
order  to  promote  truth  we  must  remove  error,  and 
every  removal  of  error  is  a  negation.  Still,  whether 
for  good  or  evil,  no  church  has  so  abounded  in 
purely  negative  theology  as  the  Scottish.  It  is  the 
only  Church  which  produced  by  name  a  "  Negative 


Lkct.  II.  ITS  indepen*dence.  75 

Confession  of  Faith,"  ^  containing  only  the  doctrines 
which  were  not  to  be  believed,  instead  of  the  doc- 
trines which  are  to  be  believed.  In  order  to  see  any 
likeness  to  it  we  must  go  back  to  the  Fourth  Council 
of  Toledo,  and  study  the  creed  of  the  Visigothic  King 
Reccared,  which  consists  from  first  to  last  of  nothing 
but  anathemas.^  It  is  the  only  Protestant  Church 
which  has  even  amongst  its  more  temperate  forms  of 
subscription  not  only  assertions  of  truths  to  be  em- 
braced, but  an  enumeration  of  errors  to  be  condemned. 
"Do  you  disown  all  Popish,  Arian,  Socinian,  Arminian, 
Bourignian,^  and  other  doctrines,  tenets,  and  opinions 
whatever,  contrary  to  and  inconsistent  with  the  Con- 
fession of  Faith  ?  "  It  is  the  only  Church  which  could 
boast  of  a  branch  professing  to  be  the  purest  section 
of  the  Church,  known  by  the  simple  and  convenient 
name  of  No.  The  Presbyterian  iVb?z- Jurors  were  for 
many  years  characteristically  and  gravely  designated 
by  the  simple  name  of  JVons}  The  "  dying  testimo- 
nies," as  well  as  the  living  creed,  of  this  purest  of 
Presbyterian  Churches  were  all  couched  in  this  uni- 
formly antagonistic  form. 

"  I  leave  my  protest,"  says  a  stern  Cameronian,  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century,  "  against  all  sectarian 
errors,  heresies,  and  blasphemies,  particularly  against 
Arianism,  Erastianism,  Socinianism,  Quakerism,  De- 
ism, Bourignianism,  Familism,  Skepticism,  Arminian- 

1  The  name  given  to  the  "Na-  325),  has  been  the  first  dropped, 
tional  Covenant"  of  1850.  Innes's  The  rigid  Free  Church,  in  this  re- 
Laiv  of  Creeds,  p.  36.  Cunningham,  spect  alone  freer  than  the  Establish- 
i  448.  ed,  allows  of  the  orthodoxy  of  this 

2  Harduin's  Councils,  iii.  473.  good,  though  eccentric,  French  lady 

3  The  denunciation  of  the  inno-  who  taught  it. 
cent  Antonia  Bourignon,  which  was  *  Burton,  ix.  60. 
the  last    added    (Cunningham,  ii. 


76  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND.  Lect.  H. 

ism,  Liitheranism,  Brownism,  Baxterianism,  Anabap- 
tism,  Millenarianism,  Pelagianism.  Campbellianism, 
Whitfieldianism,  Latitudinarianism,  and  Independency, 
and  all  other  sects  and  sorts  that  maintain  any  error, 
heresy,  or  blasphemy  that  is  contrary  to  the  Word  of 
God,  etc.,  and  all  erroneous  speeches  vented  from  pul- 
pits, pages,  or  in  public  or  private  discourses ;  and 
against  all  toleration  granted  or  given  at  any  time,  in 
favor  of  these  or  any  other  errors,  heresies,  or  blas- 
phemies, or  blasphemous  heretics,  particularly  the  tol- 
eration granted  by  the  sectarian  usurper,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  the  anti-Christian  toleration  granted  by 
the  Popish  Duke  of  York,  and  the  present  continued 
toleration  granted  by  that  wicked  Jezebel,  the  pre- 
tended Queen  Anne."  ^ 

And  this  negation  is  carried  out  even  into  the  de- 
tails of  Ritual.  Scotland,  as  well  as  England,  has  its 
Ritualism,  its  symbolism.  But  its  symbolism  is  one 
which  depends  for  its  meaning  not  on  what  it  affirms 
but  on  what  it  rejects.  The  Church  of  Scotland  sat 
in  praise,  because  others  stood.  It  stood  in  prayer 
because  others  knelt.  It  was  silent  in  funerals  be- 
cause others  spoke.  It  repudiated  Christmas  because 
others  observed  it.  I  do  not  say  that  this  symbolism 
is  not  as  reasonable  or  as  edifying  as  much  that  we 
cherish  beyond  the  Border ;  but  it  is  a  symbolism 
peculiar  to  Scotland,  and -originating  in  that  antago- 
nism of  which  I  have  spoken. 

Negation,  as  I  have  said,  has  its  value,  and  has  its 
drawbacks.  The  Church  of  Scotland,  in  the  aspect 
which  we  are  now  considering,  is  a  splendid  speci- 
men both  of  the  good  and  evil  of  this  form  of  theol- 

1  Burton,  ix.  60. 


Lect.  11.  ITS   INDEPENDENCE.  77 

ogy.  There  is  a  sentence  of  Voltaire  which  well 
illustrates  its  use,  "  That  which  resists  supports." 
Such  has  been  the  beneficent  side  of  the  contradic- 
tious character  of  the  Scottish  Church.  There  is  a 
sentence  of  Goethe  which  describes  how  the  scoffing 
Fiend  is  always  saying  "  No "  and  never  "  Yes." 
That  is  the  darker  side  even  of  the  most  fervent 
forms  of  the  same  tendency. 

The  second  feature  is  the  vigor  which  has  been 
given  to  the  claims  of  spiritual  independence.  Spiritual 
It  is  extremely  difficult  to  distinguish  how  ence. 
far  this  is  a  development  of  the  passion  for  national  in- 
dependence, and  of  the  passion  of  antagonism  already 
mentioned  ;  or  how  far  it  has  a  separate  ecclesias- 
tical growth.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that,  in  the 
first  instance,  if  not  created  it  was  greatly  fostered 
by  the  historical  circumstances  of  the  formation  of 
the  Scottish  Church.  The  original  independence  of 
the  General  Assembly  was  an  accident  arising  from 
the  political  confusion  of  Scotland  at  the  time.  It 
soon  received  the  sanction  of  the  legislature,  which 
at  once  placed  it  in  a  unique  position  amongst  Prot- 
estant Churches.  What  was  called  its  spiritual  au- 
thority was,  in  fact,  temporal  power  conceded  on  a 
very  large  scale  to  a  body  which  became  the  Second 
Parliament  of  Scotland.  This  claim  to  independence 
from  the  state  was,  in  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  increased  from  another  quarter.  The  origi- 
nal Covenanters,  so  far  from  being  opposed  to  inter- 
ference of  the  civil  power  in  ecclesiastical  affiiirs, 
laid  it  down  as  one  of  the  fundamental  maxims  of 
their  Solemn  League,  that  the  state  should  be  bound 
to  promote  true   religion,  and    to   procure    that  all 


78  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  II. 

"  evil  instruments  for  hindering  the  reformation  of 
religion  shall  receive  condign  punishment  from  the 
supreme  judicatories  of  the  kingdom."  The  "  new 
forcers  of  Conscience "  under  the  Long  Parliament, 
whom  Milton  attacked  with  such  unsparing  vehe- 
mence, were  the  leaders  of  the  Covenant.  It  was 
they 

"  Wlio  dared  adjure  the  civil  sword 

To  force  the  consciences  wliich  Christ  set  free ; 
Taught  them  by  mere  A.  S.  and  Rutherford, 
To  ride  us  with  a  classic  hierarchy." 

But  when  the  State  had  broken  loose  from  the  Cov- 
enant, the  Covenanting  section  of  the  Church  in 
retaliation  broke  loose  from  the  State  ;  and  the  pro- 
test in  behalf  of  Christ's  "kingly  rights,"  as  the 
doctrine  was  called,  though  in  its  ideal  sense  intended 
to  assert  the  true  doctrine  of  the  supremacy  of  duty 
and  religion  over  every  other  consideration,  drifted 
away  into  the  secondary  and  very  subordinate  ques- 
tion of  the  supremacy  of  the  Covenanting  Church 
over  the  Uncovenanted  State  ;  and  thence,  as  the 
traditions  of  the  Covenant  faded  away,  into  the  yet 
more  remote  and  subordinate  position  of  the  suprem- 
acy of  ecclesiastical  courts,  whether  covenanted  or 
uncovenanted,  over  all  civil  courts  whatever.  "  We 
never,"  says  Ralph  Erskine,  "  declared  a  secession 
from  the  Church  of  Scotland,  but  only  a  secession 
from  the  judicatories  in  their  course  of  defection  from 
the  primitive  and  covenanted  constitution."  ^ 

Out  of  these  converging  circumstances,  combined 
with  the  more  democratic  spirit  of  the  Scottish 
people,  much  more  than  from  any  fixed  or  abstract 
principle,  sprung  those  claims  of  spiritual  indepen- 

l  Phillips's  White  field,  p.  2.31. 


lect.  il  its  independence.  79 

dence  which  have  been  raised  within  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  in  a  stronger  form  than  in  any  Christian 
community,  except  that  of  Rome  ;  and  which,  though 
they  reached  their  highest  form  in  the  Cameronians 
and  in  the  Free  Church,  exist  in  a  modified  shape 
both  in  the  Estabhshed  Church  and  in  the  Episcopal  ^ 
communion.  Out  of  these  tendencies  grew  that  ex- 
treme sensitiveness  of  the  Scottish  clergy  to  regal 
or  legislative  interference,  which  Hallam  well  calls 
''  Presbyterian  Hildebrandism,"  ^  which  has  caused 
the  name  "  Erastian "  to  be  placed  in  the  blackest 
list  of  heresies. 

The  doctrine  is  no  doubt  a  representation,  greatly 
distorted,  of  a  noble  truth  —  the  indefeasible  supe- 
riority of  moral  over  material  force  —  of  conscience 
over  power  —  of  right  against  might,  and  the  vehe- 
mence with  which  it  was  supported  in  Scotland  gave 
a  strong  impulse  to  the  cause  of  Civil  Liberty.  But 
this  heavenly  treasure  has  been  often  enshrined  in 
very  earthly  vessels  ;  and  in  its  earthly  as  well  as  its 
nobler  aspects  it  has  curiously  brought  into  close 
proximity  the  two  churches  which  naturally  are  most 
opposed  to  each  other.  Hildebrand  and  Andrew 
Melville  would  doubtless  have  started  with  horror  at 
either  being  thought  the  twin-brother  of  the  other. 
But  so  it  was ;  and  even  in  actual  history  the  affinity 
has  been  recognized.  Walter  Scott  has  finely  touched 
a  living  chord  when  he  described  how  Balfour  of 
Burley  at  last  made  common  cause  with  the  Episco- 
palian Claverhouse  against  the  English  invaders ; 
and,  in  our  own  time,  the  admiration  excited  amongst 
English  High  Churchmen  by  the  Disruption  of  1843 

1  See  Lecture  I.  2  Constitutional  History   of  England,  Hi.  i2l. 


80  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  II. 

led  by  rapid  steps  to  their  own  large  secession  to  the 
Koman  Church  in  1845;  and  the  most  estimable  of 
Scottish  Free  Churchmen  has  found  a  welcome  ally 
in  the  most  prelatical  of  Anglican  colonial  bishops. 

There  are  two  well  known  scenes  which  bring  out 
clearly  the  form  in  which  these  feelings  of  antago- 
nism and  independence  displayed  themselves. 

The  rejection  of  the  English  Liturgy  took  place  on 
July  23,  1637.  There  is  an  exact  forecast  of  these 
Rejection  troublcs  SO  dcscriptive  of  Scottish  religion, 
Engiifsh  ^^^  so  much  to  the  credit  of  the  good  sense 
Liturgy.  ^^^  good  faith,  perhaps,  one  may  add,  the 
Scottish  prudence  of  James  VL,  that  even  if  open 
to  question  as  to  some  of  its  details,  it  is  worth  citing 
both  as  a  prelude  and  a  comment.  "I  keep  him 
back,"  said  the  King  (speaking  of  Laud,  not  yet 
Archbishop),  "because  he  hath  a  restless  spirit. 
When,  three  years  since,  I  had  obtained  from  the 
Assembly  of  Perth  the  consent  to  the  Five  Articles 
of  order  and  decency  in  correspondence  with  the 
Church  of  England,  I  gave  the  promise  that  I  would 
try  their  obedience  no  further  anent  ecclesiastical 
affairs,  yet  this  man  hath  pressed  me  to  incite  them 
to  a  nearer  conjunction  with  the  Liturgy  and  Canons 
of  England  ;  but  I  sent   him  back  again  with  the 

previous  draft  he  had  drawn For  all  this  he 

feared  not  mine  anger,  but  assaulted  me  again  with 
another  ill-fangled  platform  to  make  that  stubborn  kirk 
stooj)  more  to  the  English  pattern.  But  I  durst  not 
play  fast  and  loose  with  my  soul.  He  knows  not  the 
stomach  of  that  people.  But  /  ken  the  story  of  my 
grandmother,  the  Queen  Margaret,  that  after  she  was 
inveigled  to  break  her  promise  made  to  some  muti- 


lect.il  its  independence.  81 

neers  at  a  Perth  meeting,  ishe  never  saw  good-day, 
but  from  thence,  being  much  beloved  before,  was 
despised  of  all  the  people."  ^ 

What  the  result  was  in  St.  Giles's  Church  on  that 
fatal  day,  when  the  "  black,  popish,  and  superstitious 
book,"  as  it  was  called,  was  opened  by  the  unfortu- 
nate Dean  of  Edinburgh,  can  hardly  be  imagined  in 
these  more  peaceful  days.  "  Wolf,"  "  crafty  fox," 
"  son  of  a  witch,"  "  false  Judas,"  were  the  epithets 
with  which  the  prelates  who  assisted  were  "  mightily 
upbraided ; "  and,  had  they  been  actually  all  these 
things,  they  could  hardly  have  been  worse  treated. 
And  yet,  "  these  speeches  "  of  a  certain  woman,  says 
a  grave  eyewitness,  "proceeded  not"  (and  probably 
he  was  quite  right)  "  from  any  particular  savage  or 
inveterate  malice  that  could  be  conceived  against 
the  Bishop's  person,  but  only  from  a  zeal  to  God's 
glory,  wherewith  the  woman's  heart  was  burnt  up ; 
for,  had  she  not  discerned  the  signs  of  the  beast  in 
the  Bishop's  bowels  of  conformity,  she  had  ^  never  set 
against  him  with  such  a  sharp-tongued  assault." 

The  two  special  incidents,  which  figure  in  all 
versions  of  the  tumult,  under  different  forms,  de- 
serve a  more  particular  notice. 

The  first  was  when  "  the  old  herb-woman  "  "  hear- 
ing the  Archbishop,  who  watched  the  rubric,  direct 
the  Dean  to  read  the  Collect  of  the  day,"  gathered 
up  her  indignation  in  the  well  known  exclamation, 
confounding  "  cholic  "  and  "  collect,"  and  discharged 
at  the  Dean's  head  the  famous  stool,  which  he 
escaped  by  "jowking,"  but  gave  the  signal  for  a 
universal  discharsce  of  the  like  fauld  stools  of  the 

1  Racket's  Williams,  p.  14.  *  Appendix  to  Lord  Rothes,  p.  200. 

6 


82  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  IL 

ladies  or  their  waiting-iricaids  throughout  the  church. 
Had  they  waited  till  the  Dean  had  read  the  Col- 
lect,^ it  is  possible  that  they  might  even  then  have 
changed  their  minds.  It  is  curious  at  this  distance 
of  time  to  read  as  innocent  and  beautiful  an  expres- 
sion of  prayer  as  could  be  found  in  any  part  of  the 
services  of  either  Church :  — 

"  Lord  of  all  power  and  might,  who  art  the  Author 
of  all  good  things,  graft  in  our  hearts  the  love  of  thy 
name,  increase  in  us  true  religion,  nourish  us  with 
all  goodness,  and  of  thy  great  mercy  keep  us  in  the 
same  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

The  other  incident  was  apparently  later  in  the 
day,  when  "  a  good  Christian  woman  "  who,  unable 
to  escape  from  the  church  after  its  doors  were  closed 
to  quell  the  disturbance,  had  retired  to  the  furthest 
corner  to  be  beyond  reach  of  the  hateful  service, 
and  who  then,  hearing,  as  she  thought,  the  "  mass 
sang  in  her  lug,"  turned  round  on' the  offender,  and 
"shot  against  him  the  thunderbolt  of  her  zeal,  and 
warmed  both  his  cheeks  with  the  weisrht  of  her 
hands."  The  dreadful  provocation  which  called  for 
this  explosion  was,  that  "a  young  man  sitting  be- 
hind her  began  to  sound  forth  '  Amen.'  "  ^ 

Never,  except  in  the  days  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, did  a  popular  tumult  lead  to  such  important 
results.  The  stool  which  was  on  that  occasion  flung; 
at  the  head  of  the  Dean  of  Edinburgh  extinguished 
the  English  Liturgy  entirely  in  Scotland  for  the 
seventeenth  century,  to  a  great  extent  even  till  the 
nineteenth ;  and  gave  to  the  civil  war  of  England 

'  Seventh  Sunday  after  Trinity.     2  Appendix  to  Lord  Rothes^  p.  155. 


Lect.  n.  ITS  INDEPENDENCE.  83 

an  impulse  which  only  ended  in  the  overthrow  of 
the  Church  and  Monarchy.^ 

No  doubt  the  exasperation  had  its  root  in  the 
indomitable  native  vigor  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking.  But  the  intrinsic  slightness  of  the  in- 
cidents which  roused  it  is  the  best  proof  of  the 
force  of  the  feeling.  It  is  instructive  as  an  instance 
of  the  folly  of  pressing  outward  forms,  however 
innocent,  on  those  who  cannot  understand  them. 
It  is  an  instructive  reflection  to  both  parties,  that 
the  main  offenses  which  provoked  this  terrible  mani- 
festation might  now  be  repeated  with  impunity  in 
every  Church  in  Scotland,  Established,  Free,  or 
Seceding.  It  is  an  equally  instructive  reflection, 
that  the  two  ecclesiastical  communions  that  are  now 
most  closely  allied  against  the  existing  constitution 
both  of  the  Church  of  England  and  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland,  come  from  the  spiritual  descendants 
of  Archbishop  Laud  in  England,  and  the  spiritual 
descendants  of  Jenny  Geddes  in  Scotland. 

The  other  scene  to  which  I  will  call  attention  is  the 
adoption  of  the  National  Covenant.     Of  all  xheNa- 
National  Confessions  of  Faith  ever  adopted,  enant. 
at  least  in  these  realms,  it  is  the  one  which  for  the 

1  The  whole  transaction  is  ably  would  seem  that  what  particularly 

described  in  Burton  (vi.  442),  who  roused  the  first  of  the  two  assailants, 

certainly  shakes  the  identity  of  the  was  the  inopportune  correction  of 

"  old  herb-woman  "  with  the  Jenny  the  Dean  by  the  Archbishop,  which 

Geddes  who  burnt  her  stool  at  the  called  attention  to  the  complication 

festivities  of  the  Restoration.  of  the   English  service,  when   the 

The  incidents,  when  read  in  the  Dean  had  to  turn  over  the  leaves  to 

three  original  accounts  of  the  Large  look  for  the  Collect  of  the  day;  and 

Declaration,  Gordon's  Scots'  Affairs,  that  the  second  was  excited  by  the 

and   the  Appendix  to  Lord  Rothes'  sound  of  a  response  unusual  in  Pres- 

Memoirs,  are  sufficiently  distinct.  It  byterian  worship. 


84  THE   CHURCH  OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  n. 

time  awakened  the  widest  and  the  deepest  enthu- 
siasm. It  was  in  the  Greyfriars'  Church  at  Edin- 
burgh that  it  was  first  received,  on  February  28, 
1638.  The  aged  Earl  of  Sutherland  was  the  first 
to  sign  his  name.  Then  the  whole  congregation 
followed.  Then  it  was  laid  on  the  flat  grave-stone 
still  preserved  in  the  church-yard.  Men  and  women 
crowded  to  add  their  names.  Some  wept  aloud, 
others  wrote  their  names  in  their  own  blood ;  others 
added  after  their  names  "till  death."  For  hours 
they  signed,  till  every  corner  of  the  parchment  was 
filled,  and  only  room  left  for  their  initials,  and  the 
shades  of  night  alone  checked  the  continual  flow. 
From  Greyfriars'  church-yard  it  spread  to  the  whole 
of  Scotland.  Gentlemen  and  noblemen  carried 
copies  of  it  "in  their  portmanteaus  and  pockets," 
requiring  and  collecting  subscriptions  publicly  and 
privately."  ^  Women  sat  in  church  all  day  and  all 
night,  from  Friday  till  Sunday,  in  order  to  receive 
the  Communion  with  it.  None  dared  to  refuse  their 
names.  The  general  panic,  or  the  general  contagion, 
caught  those  whom  we  should  least  expect.  The 
chivalrous  Montrose,  the  gay  Charles  11.,  the  holy 
and  enlightened  Leighton,  were  constrained  to  follow 
in  the  universal  rush.  From  Scotland  it  spread  to 
England ;  and  there  assumed  the  more  portentous 
shape  of  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant.  What 
had  begun  by  being  an  impassioned,  yet  not  unrea- 
sonable, determination  to  defend  the  rights  of  Pres- 
The  bytery  in  Scotland,  had  now  grown  into  a 

League  determination  as  impassioned  to  enforce  it 
nant.         throughout  the  empire.     The  imperious  dic- 

1  Rothes,  p.  46. 


Lect.  n.  ITS  INDEPENDENCE.  85 

tation  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  reached  into  the 
heart  of  London.  There,  in  St.  Margaret's  Church, 
beneath  the  shadow  of  Westminster  Abbey,  the 
Covenant  was  read  from  the  pulpit,  article  by  arti- 
cle, in  the  presence  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament 
and  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines.  Every  person  in 
the  congregation  stood  up,  with  his  right  hand  raised 
to  heaven,  and  took  the  pledge  to  observe  it.  One 
by  one  they  signed  their  names;  and  thence  it  was 
spread  and  enforced  with  all  the  penalties  of  the  law, 
and  by  all  the  pressure  of  enthusiasm,  in  every 
county  in  England.  Hardly  any  ventured  to  decline. 
Forced  explanations,  mutual  reservations,  here  and 
there  were  expressed.  The  voice  of  one  just  and 
wise  man,  Richard  Baxter,  was  raised  against  this 
indiscriminate  enforcement  of  so  minute  and  terrible 
a  confession.  But,  on  the  whole,  it  took  its  place  as 
the  very  first  and  chiefest  creed  of  the  Church  of 
Great  Britain.  The  vehemence  with  which  it  was 
first  received,  the  tenacity  with  which  it  still  retains 
its  hold  on  the  Cameronian  ^  portion  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland,  is  one  of  the  most  signal  proofs  of  the 
power  of  Scottish  religion  to  enkindle  the  whole 
nation.  "  I  dinna  ken  what  the  Covenant  is,"  said 
an  old  Scottish  dame,  even  in  our  own  day ;  "  but 
I'll  maintain  it."  "  To  pass  in  silence  over  the  sworn 
Covenant "  was,  according  to  Rutherford,^  a  denial  of 
Christianity  itself  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
rapid  subsidence  of  this  enthusiasm,  even  at  the 
time;    its   almost    total    disappearance    now    even 

1  I  have  elsewhere  given  an  in-    the  Cameronians  in  Ulster.    Atha- 
stance  of  this  from  the  practice  of    nasian  Creed,  p.  67.) 

8  Letters,  p.  349.     Bonar,  p.  201. 


86  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  U. 

amongst  those  who  might  be  thought  of  the  direct 
spiritual  lineage  of  those  who  imposed  it,  is  a  strik- 
ing example  both  to  Scotland  and  all  the  world  of 
the  transitory  nature  of  those  outward  expressions 
of  party  zeal,  which  at  the  moment  seem  all  impor- 
tant. There  are  documents  of  a  like  sulphurous  kind 
which  still  hold  a  certain  place,  though  they  were 
not  engendered  in  so  impassioned  an  atmosphere  as 
the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant.  But  their  original 
source  is  identical,  and  their  ultimate  fate  will  doubt- 
less be  the  same. 

This  leads  me  to  the  third  point  in  Scottish  theol- 
Minute  ogy  which  is  worth  noticing,  namely,  the 
division.  littlcncss  and  the  minuteness  of  the  points 
on  which  its  religious  divisions  have  taken  place. 
Perhaps  in  themselves  they  are  not  smaller  or  more 
obscure  than  some  of  those  which  divided  the  Church 
in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  But  they  have  this 
peculiarity  in  Scotland,  that  they  have  hardly  ever 
reached  beyond  the  Scottish  borders,  or  even  the 
borders  of  the  contending  churches.  The  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant,  as  we  have  seen,  for  a  few 
years  had  a  vast  extension  through  the  whole  realm. 
But  the  subsequent  secessions,  which  have  almost  all 
had  some  relation  to  it,  and  which  are  in  fact  its 
direct  offspring,  are  entirely  confined  to  Scotland  and 
Scottish  colonies. 

It  is  said  that  on  the  day  of  the  Disruption  of 
1843,  when  the  news  flew  through  Edinburgh  that 
four  hundred  ministers  had  left  the  Established 
Church,  a  well  known  judge  exclaimed  with  a  just 
feeling  of  national  pride,  "  Have  they  gone  out  ? 
There  is  not  another  country  in  the  world  in  which 


Lect.  n.  ITS  DIVISIONS.  87 

such  a  spectacle  could  be  seen."  He  was  right. 
There  was  no  other  country  in  the  world  where  so 
noble  a  testimony  could  have  been  borne  to  the 
sacredness  and  tenderness  of  scrupulous  consciences. 
But  it  is  no  -less  true  that,  in  no  other  country  in  the 
world  would  the  consciences  of  so  many  able  and  ex- 
cellent men  have  been  so  deeply  wounded  by  the  in- 
tricacies of  a  legal  suit,  of  which  the  point  at  issue 
can  only  be  ascertained  by  a  searching  investigation 
of  conflicting  statements,  even  amongst  those  who 
are  most  keen  in  the  controversy.  In  the  great 
Craiordallie  case,  which  formed  the  analoQ:ous  bone 
of  contention  between  "  the  Old  Lights  and  the  New 
Lights,"  Lord  Eldon  expressed  this  difficulty  with 
characteristic  solemnity:  "  The  Court,"  ^  he  said,  "  has 
pronounced  an  interlocutor,  in  which  it  describes  the 
utter  impossibility  of  seeing  anything  like  what  was 
intelligible  in  the  proceedings,  and  I  do  not  know 
how  the  House  of  Lords  is  to  relieve  the  parties  from 
the  consequence.  The  Court  of  Session  in  Scotland 
are  quite  as  likely  to  know  what  were  the  principles 
and  standards  of  the  Associate  Presbytery  and  Synod 
of  Scotland  as  any  of  your  lordships ;  and  are  as 
well,  if  not  better  able,  than  your  lordships,  to  decide 
whether  any  acts  done  or  opinions  professed  by  the 
defenders,  Jedidiah  Aiken  and  others,  were  opinions 
and  facts  which  were  a  deviation  on  the  part  of  the 
defenders  from  the  principles  and  standards  of  the 
Associate  Presbytery  and  Synod,  \ithey  were  obliged 
to  justify  their  finding  as  they  do,  intimating  that 
they  doubt  whether  they  understood  the  subject  at 
all,  under  the  words, '  as  far  as  they  are  capable  of 

1  Innes's  Law  of  Creeds  in  Scotland,  pp.  841,  342. 


88  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  U 

understanding  the  subject,'  I  hope  I  may  be  per- 
mitted  without  offense  to  you  to  say,  that  there  may 
be  some  doubt  whether  we  understand  the  subject, 
not  only  because  the  Court  of  Session  is  much  more 
likely  to  understand  the  matter  than  we  are,  but  be- 
cause I  have  had  the  mortification,  many  times  over, 
to  endeavor  myself  to  understand  what  these  prin- 
ciples were,  and  whether  they  have  or  have  not  de- 
viated from  them ;  and  I  have  made  the  attempt  to 
understand  it,  till  I  find  it,  at  least  on  my  part,  to 
be  quite  hopeless." 

The  perplexity  of  Lord  Eldon  has  often  been  felt 
by  humbler  inquirers.  This  extreme  obscurity  and 
particularity  of  theological  statement  of  which  he 
complains,  has  doubtless  been  the  result  of  many 
causes.  It  belongs  to  the  stubborn  pugnacity  of 
which  I  have  just  spoken.  It  belongs  also  to  the 
extraordinary  eagerness  inherent  in  all  movements 
of  a  party  character,  —  but,  from  the  union  of  logical 
subtlety  and  fervid  impetuosity,  particularly  con- 
spicuous in  Scottish  agitations,  to  invest  small  details 
with  the  grandeur  of  universal  principles.  There  is 
a  saying  of  Samuel  Rutherford  in  his  preface  to  the 
"  Rights  of  Presbyterianism,"  which  ought  to  be  the 
exception  in  all  sound  theology,  but  which,  in  many 
of  these  Scottish  disputes,  has  been  taken  as  the 
rule.  "  In  God's  matters  there  is  not,  as  in  grammar, 
the  positive  and  comparative  degrees ;  there  are  not 
a  true,  and  more  true,  and  most  true.  Truth  is  in 
an  indivisible  line  that  hath  no  latitude." 

This  tendency  may  also  have  been  in  fact  in- 
creased by  the  peculiarity  of  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession.    Latest   born,   with   one    exception,    of    all 


Lect.  n.  ITS  DIVISIONS.  89 

Protestant  Confessions,  it  far  more  nearly  approaches 
the  full  proportions  of  a  theological  practice,  and 
exhibits  far  more  depth  of  theological  insight  than 
any  other.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  reflects 
also  far  more  than  any  other  the  minute  hair-split- 
ting and  straw  dividing  distinctions  which  had 
reached  their  height  in  the  Puritanical  theology  of 
that  age,  and  which  in  sermons  ran  into  the  six- 
teenthly,  seventeenthly  sections,  that  so  exercised 
the  soul  of  Dugald  Dalgetty  as  he  waited  for  the 
conclusion  of  the  discourse  in  the  chapel  of  Inverary 
Castle.  It  accordingly  furnished  the  food  for  which 
the  somewhat  hard  and  logical  intellect  of  Scotland 
had  a  special  appetite.  The  more  genial  influence 
of  a  general  literature  which  had  already  sprung  up 
in  England,  and  which,  as  Matthew  Arnold  would 
say,  had  already  played  freely  round  its  theological 
literature,  and  diffused  something  at  least  of  "  sweet- 
ness and  light "  into  its  darkest  corners,  had  hardly 
yet  made  itself  felt  in  Scotland.  Questions  of  purely 
secular  interest,  patronage,  decisions  of  courts  of  law, 
various  details  of  civil  administration,  were  thus  in- 
vested with  the  dignity  of  fundamental  principles, 
and  pursued  through  all  the  ramifications  of  Cove- 
nanting theology. 

It  would  be  ungracious,  and  it  would  be  need- 
less to  multiply  instances.  Let  one  suffice,  whitefieid 
When  George  Whitefieid  came  to  Scotland,  Seceders. 
bursting  with  enthusiasm,  burning  with  Calvinistic 
fervor,  he  expected  nothing  but  sympathy  from  the 
disciples  of  John  Knox,  and  especially  from  that 
extremest  and  straitest  sect  which,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  Ralph  and  Ebenezer  Erskine,  had,  for  the 


90  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  U. 

sake  of  purer  air  and  more  fiery  zeal,  deviated  from 
the  Church  of  Scotland  as  he  had  from  the  Church 
of  England.  "  Come,"  said  RaljDh  Erskine,  with  a 
simplicity  which  is  almost  tragical, — "come,  if  possi- 
ble, dear  Whitefield ;  there  is  no  face  on  earth  which 
I  would  more  earnestly  desire  to  see.  Yet,"  he  adds, 
"  I  do  desire  it  only  in  a  way  that  I  think  would  tend 
most  to  the  advancing  of  the  Lord's  kingdom,  and 
Reformation-work  in  our  hands^  The  humble  man- 
sion may  still  be  visited  at  Dunfermline,  in  which 
Whitefield  was  received  by  the  zealous  brothers.  A 
small  low  chamber,  opening  into  a  still  smaller  ora- 
tory, such  as  used  till  lately  to  be  seen  in  many  of 
the  old  houses  in  Edinburgh,  was  the  scene  of  this  sin- 
gular conference.  They  required  that  he  should  only 
preach  for  them :  they  were  the  Lord's  people.  But 
Whitefield  would  hear  of  none  of  their  limitations. 
He  would  refuse  no  call,  he  said,  "  to  preach  Christ, 
whoever  gave  it ;  were  it  a  Jesuit  or  a  Mohammedan, 
I  would  use  it  for  testifying  against  them.  If  others 
are  the  devil's  people,  they  have  more  need  to  be 
preached  to.  If  the  Pope  should  lend  me  his  pulpit, 
I  would  declare  the  righteousness  of  Christ  therein." 
They  then  determined  to  instruct  him  in  the  order 
of  church  government.  He  was  required,  before  he 
proceeded  a  step  further,  to  sign  the  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant.  To  their  amazement  he  knew  noth- 
ing about  it,  "  as  he  had  been  busy  with  matters  of 
greater  importance."  "  Every  pin  of  the  taberna- 
cle," they  said,  "was  precious."  He  could  not  be 
persuaded,  and  they  parted  asunder.^ 

But   they  still   pursued    him  and  his  work;  and, 

1  Gledstone's  Life  of  Whitefield. 


LKCT.n.  ITS  DIVISIONS.  91 

after  the  wonderful  effects  produced  by  his  preaching 
on  the  green  bank  at  Cainbuslang,  still  called  "  Con- 
version Brae,"  the  Seceders,  with  the  Cameronians  at 
their  back,  appointed  the  4th  of  August  as  a  day  of 
fasting  and  humiliation  throughout  their  whole  body, 
for  the  countenance  given  to  Whitefield,^  "  a  priest 
of  the  Church  of  England,  who  had  sworn  the  Oath 
of  Supremacy  and  abjured  the  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant,  and  for  the  system  of  delusion  attending 
the  present  awful  work  on  the  bodies  and  spirits  of 
men  going  on  at  Cambuslang."  They  published  the 
"  Declaration,  Protestation,  and  Testimony  of  the 
suffering  remnant  of  the  anti-Popish,  anti-Lutheran, 
anti-Erastian,  anti-Prelatic,  anti-Whitefieldian,  anti- 
Sectarian,  true  Presbyterian  Church  of  Christ  in 
Scotland  against  George  Whitefield  and  his  encour- 
agers,  and  against  the  work  at  Cambuslang  and  other 
places."  In  this  protest  the  zealots  and  polemics  of 
every  Church  may  see  their  own  faces  reflected.  Its 
spirit  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  passed  away  from 
the  Church  of  Scotland  altogether.  It  would  be  most 
unjust  and  uncharitable  to  dwell  on  its  manifestations 
as  if  they  were  general  or  predominant ;  and  I  shall, 
as  I  proceed,  gladly  acknowledge  the  immense  ad- 
vance made  within  the  last  thirty  years,  even  in  those 
quarters  in  which  it  chiefly  prevailed.  Yet  surely  it 
still  is  true,  that  hardly  anywhere  in  Christendom 
could  have  been  heard  such  animated  and  able  de- 
bates as  have  been  quite  recently  witnessed  in  the 
assembly  of  the  greatest  of  the  Seceding  Churches  in 
Scotland ;  one  on  "  the  Double  and  Single  Refer- 
ence," the  other  on  "  the  Unlawfulness  of  Human 
Hymns." 

1  Burton  Ix.  201,  301. 


92  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND.  Lect.  II. 

II.  It  remains  to  sum  up  the  good  and  evil  of  this 
aspect  of  Scottish  theology,  which  has  so  deeply  col- 
ored the  Church  of  Scotland,  which  has  been  the  one 
prevailing  hue  of  those  portions  of  it  that  make  up 
the  bulk  of  its  outlying  sections. 

1.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  undeniable  that  this  has 
Fervid  de-  hccu  thc  sourcc  at  which  some  of  the  finest 
votion.  ^^^  noblest  spirits  of  the  Scottish  Church, 
especially  in  its  less  educated  classes,  have  been  fed. 
The  elaborate  arguments  of  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession, and  the  long  wail  of  the  Judicial  Testimony 

—  the  stubborn  resistance  to  Popery  and  Prelacy  — 
have  formed  the  rouo^h  husk  within  which  lies  hid 

o 

the  Divine  fire  of  Scotland's  Burning  Bush.  If  intol- 
erant excesses  of  this  tendency  have  given  occasion 
to  the  withering  sarcasms  of  Burns'  "  Holy  Fair  "  and 
"  Holy  Willie,"  its  nobler  side  has  furnished  that  un- 
rivaled picture  of  a  poor  man's  religious  household, 

—  "  The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night  "  :  — 

"  The  cheerfu'  supper  done,  wi'  serious  face, 

They,  round  the  ingle,  form  a  circle  wide  ; 
The  sire  turns  o'er,  with  patriarchal  grace, 

The  big  ha'  Bible,  ance  his  father's  pride  : 
His  bonnet  rev'rently  is  laid  aside. 

His  Ij'art  haffets  wearing  thin  an'  bare  ; 
Those  strains  that  once  did  sweet  in  Zion  glide, 

He  wales  a  portion  with  judicious  care. 
And  '  Let  us  worship  God  ! '  he  says,  with  solemn  air." 

Most  true  it  is  that  '•  from  scenes  "  and  from  stud- 
ies like  these  "  old  Scotia's  grandeur  springs."  The 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  strange  as  it  seems  to 
us,  inspired  a  rapture  seemingly  as  pure  and  heav- 
enly as  if  it  had  been  the  "  Imitatio  Christi."  Listen 
to  the  "  Swan  Song  "  —  the  very  name  is  full  of  emo- 


lkct.  il  its  devotion.  93 

tion  — "  or  the  dying  testimony  of  that  old,  flour- 
ishing, and  great  Christian  princely  wrestler  with 
his  Master  and  valiant  contender  for  Christ's  truths 
and  rights  and  royal  prerogatives,  James  Masson." 
"When  I  first  heard  the  Covenant  mentioned,  I 
thought  my  heart  fluttered  within  me  for  joy.  Then, 
therefore,  at  such  times  and  in  such  places  I  took  it, 
as  at  Dumfries,  Pierpoint,  Kirkmalo,  and  Iron  Gray, 
which  I  never  forget  to  this  day,  and  hope  never  to 
do.  0,  what  shall  I  speak  to  the  commendation  of 
those  covenants  ?  If  they  were  then  glorious  and 
bright,  I  believe  that  they  will  be  nine  times  as 
bright.  And  0,  the  sweet  times  of  Covenanting  I 
had  likewise  at  communion  in  those  days,  when  the 
Church  was  in  her  purity,  and  the  Lord  shined  on 
W.,  and  in  other  places,  at  the  preaching  of  his  word, 
which  I  cannot  now  tell  over,  being  past  my  memory. 
But  the  back-looking  to  them  now  and  then  does  not 
a  little  refresh  my  soul,  as  at  Loche  Hilt  and  Shalloch- 
burn,  where,  besides  the  sweet  manifestations  to  my 
soul,  and  the  soul  of  others  then  present.  He  was  to 
be  as  a  wall  of  fire  round  about  us,  defending  us  from 
our  enemies."  ^ 

The  splendid  appeal  of  Ephraim  Macbriar  to  his 
judges  in  "  Old  Mortality,"  which  is  almost  literally 
copied  from  that  of  Hugh  M'Cail,  is  as  genuine  an 
outcome  of  the  wild  theology  of  those  days  as  the 
ravings  of  Habakkuk  Mucklewrath.  The  tombs  of 
the  Covenanters  are  to  the  Scottish  Church  what  the 
Catacombs  are  to  the  early  Christian  Church.  If  the 
inscriptions  which  hope  that  their  persecutors  will 

"  Find  at  Resurrection-day, 
To  murder  saints  was  no  sweet  play,"  — 

1  Burton,  viii.  253. 


94  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Leot.  II. 

recall  to  us  the  savage  imprecations  of  Tertullian, 
and  the  author  of  the  treatise  "  De  Mortibus  Perse- 
cntorum,"  the  simple  ever-recurring  rhymes  which 
enumerate  the  names  of  those  who  died  for  the 
"  covenanted  work  of  Reformation,"  are  more  like  the 
monuments  of  the  Christians  of  those  first  ages  than 
anything  else  which  exists  in  modern  times.  In  no 
other  Protestant  Church  has  such  genuine  veneration 
gathered  round  the  graves  of  martyrs  and  scenes  of 
martyrdom  as  at  Auchinleck,  where  the  whole  parish 
migrated  to  the  foot  of  the  gallows  on  which  Alex- 
ander Peden  was  hanged ;  or  at  Wigton,  where  the  two 
women  were  drowned  on  the  sea-shore  for  refusing 
the  Test ;  or  in  the  green  spot  called  "  the  Martyrs' 
Field,"  on  Magus  Moor,  through  which  no  plough  has 
ever  been  driven  since  the  Covenanters  were  buried 
there  who  slew  Archbishop  Sharp.  The  outward 
circumstances  which  nourished  this  singular  devotion 
have  almost  totally  passed  away.  The  devotion  itself 
remains,  a  proof  of  the  intensity  of  belief  that  can 
be  sustained  by  the  narrowest  form  of  doctrine,  if  it 
be  planted  in  a  manly,  independent  understanding, 
and  a  warm,  self-sacrificing  heart. 

"  The  soldiers  of  the  Cameronian  resriment,"  said 
Kerr  of  Kershaw,  who,  as  Mr.  Burton  says,  "  being 
among  them,  but  not  of  them,"  rendered  to  them  this 
noble  testimony,  "  are  -strictly  religious,  and  make  the 
war  a  part  of  their  religion,  and  convert  state  policy 
into  points  of  conscience.  They  fight  as  they  pray, 
and  pray  as  they  fight.  They  may  be  slain ;  never 
conquered.  Many  have  lost  their  lives  ;  few  or  none 
ever  yielded.  Whenever  their  duty  or  their  religion 
calls  them  to  it,  they  are  always  unanimous  and  ready 


LECT.  II.  ITS   THEOLOGY.  95 

with  undaunted  spirit  and  great  vivacity  of  mind  to 
encounter  hardships,  attempt  great  enterprises,  despise 
dangers,  and  bravely  rush  to  death  or  victory."  ^ 

2.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  this  marvelous  energy 
of  Scottish  Presbyterian  religion  ought  not  to  blind  us 
to  the  fact  of  the  curious  defects  by  which  the  forms 
of  it  here  considered  have  been  so  lonii;  disfio-ured.  I 
do  not  now  speak  of  the  extravagances  of  Calvinism, 
which  it  shared  with  the  Reformed  Churches  of  Ge- 
neva, of  Holland,  and  of  Connecticut.  But  there  are 
some  features  which  it  possesses  almost  peculiar  to 
itself.  The  immense  preponderance  of  the  teaching 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  of  some  of  the  most  tran- 
sitory parts  of  the  Old  Testament  over  the  New,  and 
over  the  most  essential  part  of  the  New,  cannot  but 
have  cribbed,  confined,  and  soured  the  relig-  j^^^^j^, 
ious  teaching  of  the  country.  Even  in  Burns's  ontr^^*^ 
beautiful  picture  of  the  "  Cotter's  Saturday  theology. 
Night,"  the  scenes  from  Jewish  history  and  from  the 
most  Judaic  book  in  the  "  Christian  volume  "  coun- 
terbalance all  the  rest.  Much  more  was  this  the  case 
in  the  earlier  days,  whence  this  form  of  teaching  took 
its  rise.  The  Scottish  religious  civil  wars  were,  in 
the  Acts  of  the  General  Assemblies,  regarded  as 
equivalent  to  the  wars  of  the  Lord  in  the  Jewish 
times.^  In  a  well  known  pamphlet  of  the  seventeenth 
century — "Issachar's  Ass  braying  under  a  Double 
Burden  "  —  a  careful  observer  has  found  that,  out  of 
a  hundred  or  more  references  to  the  Bible,  eighty-four 
are  to  the  Old  Testament  and  only  fifteen  to  the 
New.^  Of  one  of  the  most  eminent  lay  politicians  of 
the    Covenanting  Church,  Lord  Macaulay  remarks,* 

1  Burton,  vii.  460.  3  Ibid.  25G. 

2  Cunningham,  ii.  137.  <  Macaulay,  iii.  28. 


96  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  II. 

that  "  He  had  a  text  of  the  Old  Testament  ready  for 
every  occasion.  ...  It  is  a  striking  characteristic  of 
the  man,  and  of  the  school  in  which  he  had  been 
trained,  that  in  all  the  mass  of  his  writing  which  has 
come  down  to  us,  there  is  not  a  word  indicating  that 
he  had  ever  heard  of  the  New  Testament."  The  in- 
tense reverence  for  the  Sabbath,  beyond  what  is 
taught  not  only  in  the  Roman  Catholic  or  Anglican 
Churches,  but  in  any  Lutheran  or  Calvinistic  Conti- 
nental Church,  is  an  example  of  the  same  tendency  ; 
a  reverence,  no  doubt,  which  has  fostered  many  of 
the  finest  qualities  in  the  Scottish  people,  and  which 
must  be  honored  accordingly,  but  which  assumed  a 
disproportion,  and  became,  so  to  speak,  a  malforma- 
tion of  the  religious  system  analogous  to  that  which 
is  created  in  Russia  by  the  excessive  veneration  for 
sacred  pictures,  and  in  France  and  Italy  by  the  ex- 
cessive veneration  for  particular  saints. 

Passing  over  some  of  the  more  obvious  conse- 
quences of  these  peculiarities,  there  is  one  which  de- 
serves special  notice,  as  probably  the  most  direct 
result  from  the  narrow,  technical,  and  antagonistic 
basis  on  which  Scottish  religion  has  been  constructed, 
and  the  numerous  checks  by  which  its  free  develop- 
ment is  guarded.  In  one  of  Dr.  Johnson's  most  inso- 
lent moods,  when  in  the  Isle  of  Skye,  he  attacked  the 
ignorance  of  the  Scottish  clergy :  "  The  clergy  of 
England  have  produced  the  most  valuable  works  in 
support  of  religion,  both  in  theory  and  practice  ;  what 
have  your  clergy  done  since  they  fell  into  Presby- 
terianism  ?  Can  you  name  one  book  of  any  value  on 
a  religious  subject  written  by  them  ? "  ^     His  oppo- 

1  Boswell,  ii.  476. 


Lect.  n.  ITS   THEOLOGY.  97 

nents  were  silent.  The  charge  of  general  ignorance 
might,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  have  been  easily 
rebutted;  and,  as  regards  theology,  if  we  pass  from 
Dr.  Johnson's  time  to  our  own,  there  are  several  liv- 
ing theologians  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  at  whose 
feet  Englishmen  might  be  proud  to  sit.  But  Absence  of 
the  charge  that  no  theological  work  had  theology. 
proceeded  from  Scotland  which  had  more  than  a 
local  reputation,  is  absolutely  true  with  regard  to  the 
more  strictly  Presbyterian  theology  of  which  we  are 
now  speaking ;  and  true,  with  a  very  few  exceptions, 
which  shall  be  noticed  in  their  proper  places,  of  Scot- 
tish theology  altogether.  A  dearth  so  extraordinary 
in  a  nation  whose  struggles  have  been  so  profoundly 
religious,  is  a  singular  phenomenon.  It  may  be  in 
part  explained,  as  Boswell  tried  to  explain  it,  by  the 
assiduity  of  the  Scottish  clergy  in  their  parochial 
ministrations  ;  in  part  by  the  poverty  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical endowments.  But  it  must  be  chiefly  explained 
by  the  technical  and  minute  subjects  on  which  Scot- 
tish theology  has  run.  There  are,  doubtless,  many 
treatises  of  Scottish  theology  —  well  known  in  Scot- 
land—  but  the  language,  the  matter,  the  thoughts 
are  so  restricted  as  to  prevent  them  from  ever  reach- 
ing a  wider  circle  of  readers.  "  At  the  date,"  says 
Carlyle,  "  when  Addison  and  Steele  were  writing 
their  '  Spectators  '  "  —  (he  might  have  added,  when 
Jeremy  Taylor  and  Barrow,  when  Locke  and  Cud- 
worth  were  writing  their  treatises  on  theology  and  on 
Scripture,  in  works  which  are  still  reckoned  amongst 
the  glories  of  English  literature)  —  "our  good 
Thomas  Boston  was  writing  with  the  noblest  intent, 
but  in  defiance  of  grammar  and  philosophy,  his  '  Four- 


98  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND.  Lect.  H. 

fold  State  of  Man.'  There  were  the  schisms  in  our 
national  Church,  and  the  fiercer  schisms  in  our  body 
politic  and  theologic,  ink,  Jacobite  blood,  with  gall 
enough  in  both  to  have  blotted  out  the  intellect  of 
the  country."  ^  This  general  fact  is  a  striking  proof 
how  strong  a  tendency  there  is  in  such  angular  relig- 
ion, in  these  stringent  obligations  to  a  past  system 
of  theology,  to  dry  up,  as  far  as  religion  is  concerned, 
the  intellectual  forces  even  of  a  highly  intellectual 
people.  It  was  under  these  straitening  influences 
that  the  miserable  superstitions  of  witchcraft  lingered 
in  Scotland  after  they  had  expired  everywhere  else  ; 
and  that  the  strange  delusions  of  what  are  called  the 
"  Men  "  long  maintained  a  hold  over  the  peasants  and 
ministers  of  the  Highlands. 

And   yet   more.     It    is   instructive  to  notice  the 
Moral         instances,  perhaps  more    striking    from  the 

inconsist-  •  i  •    i      i 

ency.  sharpucss  of  the  contrast,  in  which  the  strong 

religious  zeal  of  Scottish  partisans  has  at  times  con- 
trived to  be  united  with  worldly  character  or  vicious 
life,  such  as  we  find  in  the  history  of  some  of  the  cor- 
responding phenomena  of  the  ecclesiastical  history 
of  France  or  of  Russia.  If  any  one  imagines  that 
Balfour  of  Burley  in  "Old  Mortality"  is  an  over- 
drawn caricature  of  this  tendency,  let  them  consider 
the  undoubted  historic  instances  of  Lord  Crawford 
and  Lord  Grange.  Lord  Crawford  was  appointed 
President  of  the  Parliament  by  William  III.'s  govern- 
ment in  the  hope  of  conciliating  the  rigid  Presby- 
terians. His  exuberant  use  of  the  Old  Testament 
has  been  already  noticed.  "Alone,"  says  Lord  Ma- 
caulay,  "  or  almost  alone  of  the  eminent  politicians, 

■    -  1  Carlyle,  Essays,  iii.  361. 


Lect.  n.  ITS   THEOLOGY.  99 

he  retained  the  religious  style  which  had  been  fash- 
ionable in  the  preceding  generation,"  and  was  by 
his  own  school  confidently  pronounced  to  be  a  saint.^ 
"  Yet,"  continues  Lord  Macaulay,  "  to  those  who 
judge  of  a  man  rather  by  his  actions  than  his  words, 
Crawford  will  appear  to  have  been  a  selfish  politician, 
who  was  not  at  all  the  dupe  of  his  own  cant,  and 
whose  zeal  against  Episcopal  government  was  not  a 
little  whetted  by  his  desire  to  obtain  a  grant  of  Epis- 
copal domains."  ^  Lord  Grange  was  one  of  those  grasp- 
ing, vindictive,  violent  men  that  figure  conspicuously 
in  the  earlier  days  of  Scottish  mediaeval  history.  His 
wife,  his  kinsfolk,  were  the  objects  of  his  most  cruel 
persecutions.  "  It  is  almost  frightful,"  says  Mr.  Bur- 
ton, "  to  find  a  man  of  this  kind  in  firm  alliance  with 
the  most  rigid  Presbyterian  divines,  conforming  to 
the  worship  and  discipline  of  their  Church,  so  as  to 
fulfill  the  most  ample  requisitions  of  the  most  exact- 
ing, and  a  powerful  and  well-trusted  member  of  the 
Church  courts.  His  diary  of  self-communing  con- 
tinues in  a  uniform  strain  the  exalted  tone  of  piety 
belonging  to  one  who,  as  Wodrow  says,  thought  there 
was  too  much  preaching  up  of  morality  and  too  little 
of  grace.  Yet  if  there  was  any  act  of  rigor,  of  in- 
decent outrage  on  private  life  or  opinion.  Grange 
was  the  one  to  whom  it  was  committed,  and  he  per- 
formed the  duty  with  genuine  and  unconcealed  en- 
joyment." ^ 

in.  It  may  seem  invidious  thus  to  have  dwelt  on 
the  darker  traits  of  a  great  and  noble  people.  If  I 
have  done  so  at  more  length  than  may  have  seemed 
becoming,  it  is  because  thus  only  could  I  draw  out 

1  Cunningham,  ii.  445.      2  Macaulay,  iii.  296.      3  Burton,  viii.  309. 


100  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  H. 

the  peculiarities  which  are  most  instructive  for  them 
Religious  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^  ^^  Contemplate.  In  my  two  next 
excellence.  igQ^urcs  I  sliall  hopc  to  sliow  that  there  has 
been  in  the  Church,  and  may  yet  be,  a  more  excel- 
lent way  even  than  the  Solemn  League  and  Cove- 
nant, or  the  Judicial  Testimony,  or  the  fiery  Baptism 
of  the  Disruption.  But  even  in  the  aspect  in  which 
I  have  now  been  regarding  the  religion  of  Scotland, 
this  excellent  way  may  be  discerned. 

I  have,  in  describing  this  fervid  atmosphere,  indi- 
cated how  not  only  the  Church  of  Scotland,  in  all  its 
length  and  breadth,  but  the  Church  of  England  also 
may  well  warm  its  frozen  heart,  and  get  the  chill  out 
of  its  bones,  by  drawing  near  to  the  Burning  Bush 
of  Scotland's  ancient  Church.  But  that  flame  itself 
soars  higher  yet.  It  is  at  once  a  proof  of  the  singu- 
lar candor  and  the  true  religious  instinct  of  Walter 
Scott,  that  of  all  the  Scottish  characters  in  his  Scot- 
tish romances,  none  more  truly  represent  the  highest 
Christian  type  than  Jeanie  Deans,  the  daughter  of  an 
Anti-burgher,  and  Bessie  Maclure,  the  mother  of  two 
martyrs  for  the  Covenant. 

Let  me  dwell  for  a  few  moments  on  at  least  one 
Samuel  historical  character  of  this  period,  which 
ford.  doubtle.'^s  may  stand  for  many.     I  have  al- 

ready quoted  a  line  from  one  of  Milton's  poems,  in 
which  he  glances  with  contemptuous  scorn  at  what 
he  deemed  the  obscure  name  of  Rutherford.  He  did 
not  care  to  inquire  what  that  name  represented  to 
the  Scottish  people.  Samuel  Rutherford  is  the  true 
saint  of  the  Covenant.  His  boyhood  is  enveloped 
with  legends,  such  as  those  of  which  I  spoke  in  my 
first  lecture.     His  native  place  was  Crailing,  of  which 


Lect.  II.  SAMUEL   RUTHERFORD.  101 

he  himself  afterwards  said,  "  My  soul's  desire  is  that 
that  place,  to  which  I  owe  my  first  birth,  in  which  I 
fear  that  Christ  was  scarcely  named  as  touching  any 
realitj'  of  the  power  of  godliness,  may  blossom  as  the 
rose."  It  is  said  that  the  great-grandfather  of  the 
present  Marquis  of  Lothian  always  raised  his  hat  as 
he  passed  the  cottage  where  Rutherford  was  born.  A 
tradition  ran  that  in  his  childish  sports  he 

.  .    ^  His  life. 

had  Mien  into  a  well,  and  when  his  compan- 
ions got  back  they  found  him  on  a  hill,  cold  and 
dripping,  but  uninjured.  "A  bonnie  white  man,"  he 
said,  "  came  and  drew  him  out  of  the  well."  It  is 
exactly  the  story  of  St.  Cuthbert's  childhood,  repeated 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  ^ 

Anwoth,  on  the  shores  of  Galloway,  was  the  scene 
of  his  pastoral  ministrations.  I  have  already  spoken 
elsewhere  of  the  traditions  of  his  manse  ^  and  church, 
and  described  the  scene  of  his  interview  with  Arch- 
bishop Ussher.  Men  said  of  his  life  there,  "  He  is 
always  praying,  alivays  preaching,  ahvays  entreating, 
always  visiting  the  sick,  always  catechising,  always 
writing  and  studying."  "  There,"  he  says,  "  I  wres- 
tled with  the  angel,  and  prevailed.  Woods,  trees, 
meadows,  and  hills  are  my  witnesses  that  I  drew  on 
a  fair  match  betwixt  Christ  and  Anwoth."  ^ 

We  need  not  follow  his  life  in  detail.  He  was 
taken  from  Anwoth  and  imprisoned  at  Aberdeen,  for 
his  opposition  to  the  policy  of  Charles  I.  He  finally 
left  Anwoth,  after  the  triumph  of  the  Covenant,  to 
become  Professor  at  St.  Andrew's,  where  he  remained 
till  his  end. 

He  was  already  on  his  death-bed  when  he  was  sum- 

1  Life,  p.  6.        2  «  The  Eleventh  Commandment."      3  Life,  p.  186. 


102  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  II. 

moned  by  the  Parliament  of  Charles  11.  to  appear 
before  it  on  the  charge  of  high  treason.  "I  am  sum- 
moned/' he  replied,  "  before  a  higher  Judge  and 
judicatory  :  that  first  summons  I  behove  to  answer ; 
and,  ere  a  few  days  arrive,  I  shall  be  where  few  kings 
and  great  folks  come." 

On  the  last  day  of  his  life,  in  the  afternoon,  he 
said,  "This  night  will  close  the  dawn  and  fasten 
my  anchor  within  the  veil,  and  I  shall  go  away  in  a 
sleep  by  five  o'clock  in  the  evening.  There  is  noth- 
ing now  between  me  and  the  resurrection,  but '  This 
day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise.'  'Glory, 
glory  dwelleth  in  Emmanuel's  Land.' " 

When  Parliament  voted  that  he  should  not  die  in 
the  College,  Lord  Burley  rose  and  said,  "  Ye  cannot 
vote  him  out  of  heaven."  He  lies  in  the  church- 
yard of  the  ruined  Cathedral  of  St.  Andrew's ;  and, 
like  a  mediaeval  saint,  has  attracted  round  him  "  the 
godly,  who  desired  that  they  might  be  laid  even 
where  his  body  was  laid."  ^ 

I  pass  from  his  life  to  his  character.  An  English 
His  char-  Hicrchant  at  St.  Andrew's  said  :  "  I  heard  a 
acter.  swcct,  majestic  looking  man  [one  of  the 
other  professors],  and  he  showed  me  the  majesty  of 
God.  Afterwards  I  heard  a  little  fair  man  [Samuel 
Rutherford],  and  he  showed  me  the  loveliness  of 
Christ."  It  is  the  same  spirit  as  that  in  which,  when 
Lord  Kenmare  once  asked  him,  "  What  will  Christ  be 
like  when  He  cometh  ?  "  he  replied,  "  All  lovely."  ^ 

The  chief  record  of  this  is  in  his  letters  from 
"  Christ's  Palace  at  Aberdeen,"  as  he  termed  his 
prison.     They  teem  with  figures  of  speech,  so  offen- 

1  Bonar's  Life,  p.  26.  '^  Life  of  Rulherford,  p.  107. 


Lect.  II.  SAMUEL  RUTHERFORD.  103 

sive  to  the  taste  of  a  more  refined  age,  that  they  are 
now,  in  great  part,  unreadable.  Yet  they  were  still, 
till  the  beginning  of  this  century,  a  popular  book  of 
devotion  in  Scotland,  England,  and  Holland.  Richard 
Cecil,  the  most  cultivated  of  modern  English  Evan- 
gelicals, said  of  him  :  "  He  is  one  of  my  classics,  and 
he  is  a  real  original."  Richard  Baxter,  the  most 
latitudinarian  of  the  fathers  of  Non-conformity,  said, 
"  Hold  off  the  Bible,  such  a  work  the  world  never 
saw."  And  they  contain  passages  which  fully  bear 
out  this  character :  "  With  Samuel  Rutherford,^  the 
bitter  and  bigoted  controversialist,  let  us  have  no 
fellowship.  To  Samuel  Rutherford,  the  writer  of 
those  glowing  letters,  let  the  full  sympathies  of  our 
soul  be  given." 

Listen  to  his  consolation  to  a  lady  on  the  death  of 
a  promising  son.  "  I  was  once  in  your  condition.  I 
had  but  two  children,  and  both  are  dead  since  I  came 
hither.  The  supreme  and  absolute  Father  of  all 
things  giveth  not  an  account  of  any  of  his  matters. 
The  good  husbandman  may  pluck  his  roses,  and 
gather  in  his  lilies  at  midsummer,  and,  for  aught  I 
dare  say,  in  the  beginning  of  the  first  summer 
months ;  and  he  may  transplant  young  trees  out  of 
the  lower  ground  to  the  higher,  where  they  may 
have  the  use  of  a  purer  air  at  any  season  of  the 
year.  What  is  that  to  you  or  to  me  ?  The  goods 
are  his  own ;  the  Creator  of  time  and  wind  did  a 
merciful  injury  (if  I  dare  borrow  the  word)  to  nature, 
in  landing  the  passenger  so  easily."  ^ 

1  "The  Church  and  its  Living  13,  1859,  by  the  Rev.  J.  Hanna, 
Head;"  a  Sermon  preached  Nov.    LL. D. 

3  Letters,  p.  308.     Bonar,  p.  136. 


104  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  11. 

Listen  to  his  description  of  the  voyage  of  life : 
"  How  fast,  how  fast  doth  our  ship  sail !  Ah  !  how 
fair  a  wind  hath  time  to  blow  us  off  these  coasts  and 
this  land  of  dying  and  perishing  things !  Ah,  alas  ! 
our  ship  saileth  one  way,  and  fleeth  many  miles  in 
one  hour,  to  hasten  us  upon  eternity,  and  our  love 
and  hearts  are  sailing  close  back  over,  and  swimming 
towards  ease,  lawless  pleasures,  vain  hopes,  perishing 
riches,  or  to  build  a  fool's  nest  I  know  not  where,  or 
to  lay  our  eggs  within  the  watermark,  or  fasten  our 
bits  of  broken  anchors  on  the  worst  ground  in  the 
world  —  this  fleeting  and  perishing  life;  and,  in  the 
mean  while,  time  and  tide  carry  us  on  another  life, 
and  there  is  daily  less  and  less  oil  in  our  lamp,  and 
less  and  less  sand  in  our  watchglass.  0,  what  a  wise 
course  it  were  for  us  to  look  away  from  the  false 
beauty  of  our  borrowed  prison,  and  to  mind  and  sigh 
for  our  country,  '  Lord,  Lord,  take  us  home  ! '" 

Listen  to  his  lamentations  for  Scotland  :  ^  "  Christ 
lieth  like  an  old  forecasten  castle  forsaken  of  its  in- 
habitants ;  all  men  run  away  now  from  Him.  Truth, 
innocent  truth,  goeth  mourning,  and  wringing  her 
hands  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  Woe,  woe,  woe  to  the 
virgin  daughter  of  Scotland  !  woe,  woe,  woe  to  the  in- 
habitants of  this  land !  .  .  .  .  These  things  take  me 
up  so  that  a  borrowed  bed,  another  man's  fireside, 
the  wind  upon  my  face  (I  being  driven  from  my 
home  and  dear  acquaintance,  and  my  poor  flock), 
find  no  room  in  my  sorrow ;  I  have  no  spare  or  odd 
sorrow  for  these ;  only  I  think  the  sparrows  and  swal- 
lows that  build  their  nests  in  the  kirk  of  Anwoth 
blessed  birds."  ^ 

1  Letters,  p.  378.  ^  Ibid.  p.  3G3. 


Lect.  11.  SAMUEL  RUTHERFORD.  105 

Listen  to  the  expression  of  his  better  hope  for  his 
country :  "•  I  dare  not  speak  one  word  against  the 
all-seeing  and  ever-watching  Providence  of  God.  I 
see  Providence  runneth  not  on  broken  wheels ;  but  I, 
like  a  fool,  carried  a  provender  for  mine  own  ease,  to 
die  in  my  nest,  and  to  sleep  still  till  my  gray  hairs, 
and  to  lie  on  the  sunny  side  of  the  mountain  in  my 

ministry  at  Anwoth But  now  I  see  God  hath 

the  world  on  his  wheels,  and  casteth  it  as  a  potter 
doth  a  vessel  on  the  wheels  !  "  ^  "  0,  that  He  would 
strike  out  windows  and  fair  and  great  lights  in  this 
old  house,  this  downfallen  soul,  that  the  rays  and 
beams  of  light,  and  the  soul-delighting  glances  of 
the  fair,  fair  Godhead,  might  shine  in  at  the  windows 
and  fill  the  house.  A  fairer  and  nearer  and  more 
direct  sight  of  Christ  would  make  room  for  his  love, 
for  we  are  pinched  and  straitened  in  his  love.  0, 
that  he  would  break  down  the  old  narrow  vessels 
of  those  narrow  and  shallow  souls,  and  make  fair, 
deep,  wide,  broad  souls,  to  hold  a  sea  and  full  tide, 
flowing  over  all  its  banks  of  Christ's  love !  ....  0, 
what  a  heaven  we  should  have  on  earth  to  see  Scot- 
land's moon  like  the  light  of  the  sun,  and  Scotland's 
sunlight  manifold  like  the  light  of  seven  days,  in  the 
day  that  the  Lord  raiseth  up  the  head  of  his  people, 
and  healeth  the  stroke  of  their  wounds  !  "  ^ 

"  We  see  God's  working,  and  we  sorrow.  The  end 
of  his  working  still  hidden,  ....  and  therefore  we 
believe  not.  Even  amongst  men  we  see  hewn  stones, 
timber,  and  a  hundred  scattered  parcels  and  pieces 
of  our  house,  all  under  tools,  hammers,  and  axes,  and 
saws.     Yet  the  house  —  the  beauty  and  care  of  so 

1  Letters,  p.  378.  2  Ibid.  p.  385. 


106  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  Lect.  n. 

many  lodgings  —  we  neither  see  nor  understand  for 
the  present.  These  are  not  in  the  mind  and  head 
of  the  builder  as  yet.  We  see  old  earth,  unbroken 
clods,  graves,  and  stones ;  but  we  see  not  summer, 
lilies,  roses,  and  the  beauty  of  a  garden."  ^ 

"  Alas !  that  we  will  not  pull  and  draw  Him  to  his 
old  tents  again,  to  come  and  feed  among  the  lilies 
till  the  day  breaks  and  the  shadows  flee  away.  0, 
that  the  nobles  would  come,  in  the  strength  and 
courage  of  the  Lord,  to  bring  our  lawful  King  Jesus 
here  again.  I  am  persuaded  He  shall  return  in  glory 
to  this  land  ;  but  happy  sure  they  who  would  help 
to  convey  Him  to  this  country,  and  set  Him  up 
again  on  the  mercy-seat  between  the  cherubim.  0 
Sun,  return  again  to  darkened  Britain  !....!  know 
He  can  also  triumph  in  suffering,  and  weep,  and 
reign,  and  die,  and  triumph,  and  remain  in  prison, 
and  yet  subdue  his  enemies.  But  how  happy  could 
I  live  to  see  the  Coronation-day  of  Christ,  to  see  his 
mother  who  bare  Him  put  the  crown  upon  his  head 
again,  and  cry  with  shouting,  till  the  earth  shall 
sing,  '  Lord  Jesus,  our  King,  live  and  reign  for  ever- 


more.' "  ^ 


That  Coronation-day  to  Rutherford  meant,  no 
Conciu-  doubt,  in  its  outward  form,  the  enforcement 
sion.  q|-  ^Y\e  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  and 

almost  every  section  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  now 
existing  would  have  seemed  to  him  a  miserable 
apostasy.  But  in  the  inner  shrine  of  his  devotions  a 
higher  spirit  lingers,  which  we  may  humbly  trust 
would  find  its  solace  even  in  our  latter  days.  And 
so,  in  like  manner,  I  would  speak  for  a  moment  of 

1  Letters,  305.  »  Jbid.  350. 


Leot.  II.  ITS   CONSOLATION.  107 

those  who  invest  with  the  hke  sanctity  modern 
watchwords  and  war-cries  equally  transitory.  I  have 
been  told  that  in  the  "  Convocation,"  or  solemn  as- 
sembly, that  preceded  the  Disruption  of  1843,  a 
venerable  minister  exclaimed  :  "  When  I  heard  that 
the  decisions  of  spiritual  courts  had  been  reversed 
by  a  decision  of  the  House  of  Lords,  I  felt  as  an  in- 
fant would  feel  if,  whilst  clinging  to  its  mother's 
breast,  it  found  that  its  mother  had  been  suddenly 
shot  dead."  It  was  a  pathetic  appeal,  Avhich  thrilled 
the  whole  Assembly.  Yet  if  I  might  venture,  from 
the  experience  of  the  past,  to  offer  some  consolation, 
I  would  suggest  that  the  Church  of  Scotland  has 
far  too  much  life  to  be  shot  dead  by  any  such  ex- 
ternal act  as  that  to  which  the  sacred  orator  referred. 
Again  and  again  has  that  cry  of  the  death  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland  been  raised  :  first,  when  the  Cov- 
enant was  broken  ;  then  when  the  Black  Indulgence 
was  granted ;  then  when  the  Act  of  Union  between 
England  and  Scotland  was  passed.  On  that  last  occa- 
sion was  made  the  famous  speech  of  Lord  Belhaven, 
almost  identical  in  words  with  those  of  the  Free 
Church  minister  in  1843.  All  Scotsmen  know  it  by 
heart :  "  I  think  I  see  our  ancient  mother  Caledonia, 
like  Ccesar,  sitting  in  the  midst  of  our  senate,  rue- 
fully looking  round  about  her,  covering  herself  with 
her  royal  mantle,  awaiting  the  fatal  blow,  and  breath- 
ing out  her  last  with  the  exclamation,  '  And  thou  too, 
my  son.'"  The  apprehension,  the  agitation,  the  very 
figure  of  speech  of  the  illustrious  statesman  and  the 
venerable  ecclesiastic  were  the  same,  and  sprang 
from  the  same  source.  And  to  both  of  them  the 
same  answer  may  be  returned  which  was  returned 


108  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND.  Lect.  IL 

by  Lord  Marchmont  to  Lord  Belhaven :  "I  awoke, 
and  behold  it  was  a  dream."  It  was  a  dream  to  think 
that  the  great  Scottish  nation  could  be  extinguished 
by  incorporation  with  the  civilization  of  England. 
It  is  a  dream  to  think  that  the  great  Scottish  Church 
was  to  be  extinguished  because  it  chose  to  submit 
to  the  decisions  of  law  and  the  contact  with  the 
English  State. 

What  forms  of  life  Scottish  religion  still  retains, 
and  will  retain  if  it  be  true  to  itself,  I  propose  to 
consider  in  the  next  lectures. 


LECTURE  III. 


THE  MODERATION  OF  THE   CHURCH  OF   SCOTLAND. 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  INSTITUTE, 
JANUARY   11,   1872. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE  MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Buckle,  in  his 
"History  of  Civilization,"  took  Scotland  as  Buckie's 

1  1  f     1  1   •  1  •  •  1       charge 

the  example  of  the  most  bigoted,  priest-rid-  asaiustthe 

•         -n  n        •  ^     ^^^urch  of 

den  country  m  Europe,  next  to  Spam ;  and   Scotland. 
drew  a  frightful  picture  of  the  Scottish  clergy  at  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

The  picture  itself  is  probably  overcharged ;  but, 
even  if  it  were  correct,  the  whole  effect  of  the  indict- 
ment is  set  aside  by  the  fact  —  which  Mr.  Buckle 
has  altogether  overlooked  —  that  in  the  period  fol- 
lowing this  dark  age,  the  Scottish  clergy  were  the 
most  liberal  and  enlightened  of  all  the  churches 
of  Europe ;  nay,  that  even  during  the  time  tliat  he 
imagines  the  Scottish  Church  to  be  lost  in  hopeless 
barbarism,  ther^  was  a  succession  of  men,  who  com- 
bined the  deep  religious  sentiment  which  he  admits, 
and  the  spirit  of  independence  which  he  admires, 
with  a  just  and  philosophic  moderation  which,  had 
he  known,  he  could  not  have  failed  to  admit  and  to 
admire  equally. 

The  tendency  which  I  am  now  about  to  describe 
is  part  of  the  prudential,  "canny"  side  of  the  Cale- 
donian character,  and  is  as  essential  a  feature  of  it 


112    MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  HI. 

as  the  perfervidum^  ingenium  Scotonim,  which  I  ven- 
tured to  depict  in  my  last  lecture.  Let  us  trace  it 
first  in  some  of  its  earliest  manifestations,  and  then 
in  the  Augustan  age  of  its  ascendency,  where  it 
found  its  home  in  the  heart  of  the  Established 
Church  during  what  is  called  the  reign  of  the 
Moderates. 

If  the  Church  of  Scotland  had  a  Luther  in  Knox, 
Modera-      it  had  au  Erasmus  in  the  wide  and  polished 

tion  in  the  f>     m  -r%        ^  •>  t     •  i^     ^   • 

age  of  the    culturc   of  Gcorgc  Buchauau :  ^   and  if  his 

Reforma-  •        i       i  i         i  i  •       i 

tion.  royal    pupil    had   fulfilled    the    theological 

promise  which  he  gave  in  his  early  years,  Scotland 
might  have  had  on  her  throne  a  mona,rch  as  latitudi- 
narian  as  Maximilian  II.  of  Germany,  or  as  William 
the  Silent  of  Orange.  "  He  is  neither  Lutheran  nor 
Calvinist,"  writes  the  Scottish  correspondent  to  the 
French  court,  "  but  in  many  points  much  nearer  to 
us.  He  thinks  that  faith  is  dead  without  works, 
that  there  is  no  predestination,  and  so  forth.  He 
holds  a  (false)  opinion  that  Faith  in  God  alone  can 
save  a  man,  let  him  belong  to  what  religion  he 
may."  ^ 

In  the  Regent  Murray  the  fervor  of  the  Refor- 
mation was  combined  with  a  forbearance  strongly 
contrasted  with  the  fierce  temper  of  the  age.  "  His 
house  was  compared  to  a  holy  temple,  where  no  foul 
word  was  ever  spoken.  A  chapter  was  read  every 
day  after  dinner  and  supper  in  his  fiimily ;  yet  no 

1  It  would  seem  that  the  original  writers  of  European  influence  and 
word  in  Buchanan  {Op.  i.  321)  is  celebrity.  See  a  very  interesting 
prcefervidum.  article  on  Buchanan  in  the  North 

2  It  has  been  said  that  George  i?nV«/i  i?ei'ie?t),  No.  xci.  March,  1867. 
Buchanan,  David  Hume,  and  Wal-  3  Froude,  xi.  665. 

ter   Scott  are    the   three    Scottish 


Lect.  III.        IN   THE   AGE   OF   TIIE   REFOKiMATION.  113 

one  was  more  free  from  sour  austerity,  and  he  had 
quarreled  once  with  Knox,  '  so  that  they  spoke  not 
too-ether  for  eio-hteen  months,'  because  his  nature 
shrank  from  extremity  of  intolerance,  because  he 
insisted  that  his  sister  should  not  be  interdicted 
from  mass."  ^  With  true  Scottish  humor  and  sagac- 
ity he  took  up  his  post  at  the  door,  and  declared 
with  much  solemnity  that  he  had  placed  himself 
there  "  that  no  Scotsman  might  pollute  his  eyes 
with  the  abominable  thing."  ^ 

John  Knox  himself  had  a  tinge  of  moderation 
which  has  been  but  little  recognized  either  by  his 
friends  or  his  enemies.  His  Confession  of  Faith 
stands  alone  amongst  Protestant  Confessions  for  the 
acknowledgment,  far  in  advance  of  its  age,  of  its 
own  fillibility :  "  We  protest  that  if  any  one  will 
note  in  this  our  Confession  any  article  or  sentence 
impugning  God's  Holy  Word,  that  it  would  please 
him  of  his  goodness,  and  for  Christian  charity's  sake, 
to  admonish  us  of  the  same  in  writing ;  and  we, 
upon  our  honor  and  fidelity,  do  promise  unto  him 
satisfaction  from  the  mouth  of  God  (that  is,  from 
his  Holy  Scriptures),  or  else  reformation  of  that 
which  he  shall  prove  to  be  amiss."  ^  The  rigid  Sab- 
batarianism of  modern  times  received  no  sanction 
either  from  his  practice  or  his  teaching.  He  supped 
with  Randolph  on  one  Sunday  evening,  and  visited 
Calvin  durinsi:  a  o-ame'of  bowls  on  another.*  The 
austere  theology  of  Andrew  Melville  was  tempered 

1  Froude,  xi.  502,  by  Dr.  Robert  Lee  in  his  Address 

2  Cunningham,  i.  376.  on  the  Position  of  the  Clergy. 

3  This  is  admirably  brought  out        ^  Hessey's  Bampton   Lectures,  v. 

269,  270. 


114     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  HI. 

by  an  interest  in  classical  and  academical  literature, 
the  very  reverse  of  a  hard  ^  and  narrow  Puritanism. 

As  in  Eno-land,  so  in  Scotland,  there  were  o;eritle 
or  prudent  spirits  who,  in  spite  of  the  wide  chasm 
between  the  ancient  and  the  Reformed  Church,  still 
in  a  measure  belonged  to  both.  Such  was  Hugh 
Rose,  the  Black  Baron  of  Kilravoch.  "  He  lived  in  a 
very  divided,  fiictious  time  ;  there  falling  out  then 
great  revolutions  in  Church  and  State,  religion 
changed  from  Popery  to  Protestant —  the  Queen,  laid 
aside,  being  in  exile.  Yet  such  was  his  ever  ingenu- 
ous, prudential  carriage,  that  he  wanted  not  respect 
from  the  most  eminent  of  all  the  parties."  What  was 
said  of  a  debate  betwixt  him  and  two  neighbors  might 
be  said  of  his  whole  life.  "  Hutcheon  Rose,  of  Kilra- 
voch, an  honest  man,  ill  guided  betwixt  them  both."^ 
Such,  perhaps  in  a  less  creditable  form,  was  John 
Winram,  sub-prior  of  St.  Andrew's,  who  through  the 
whole  of  that  troubled  period  retained  his  office,  and 
has  the  fact  recorded  on  his  tombstone  in  St.  Leon- 
ard's church-yard.  Conveisis  Rebus,  —  "  though  the 
world  had  even  turned  upside  down,"  he  contrived 
still  to  live  and  die  sub-prior  of  St.  Andrew's. 

Again,  the  Erastian  element  in  the  Scottish  Church 
Early  — its  closc  counectiou  Avith  the    State,  and 

Erastian-  -ini  •     n  f>      ^         c^ 

i-ni.  With  all  the  miiuences  oi  the  otate,  was  ex- 

ceedingly strong  from  its  very  first  beginning.  The 
original  Confession  of  John  Knox  ^  contains  nothing 

1  See  the  interesting  account  of  History,  p.  440.     See  also  his  sum- 
his  scheme  for  the  university  of  St.  mary  of  the  whole  family. 
Andrew's.     M'Crie,     Life   of  Mel-        3  Innes,   Laio   of  Creeds,  p.   23. 
ville,  ii.  358.  Knox's  History,  pp.  208-216.     See 

2  Cosmo   Innes's  Early    Scottish    also  his  Appellation  to  the  Nobility 

and  Estaks  nf  Scotland,  in  1556. 


Lect.   III.        IN   THE   AGE   OF   THE  REFORMATION.  116 

on  the  independence  of  the  Church ;  and  it,  as  well 
as  the  Westminster  Confession,  afterwards  was  made 
binding  on  the  Scottish  Church  by  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment.^ 

The  General  Assembly,  as  I  have  already  said,  was 
itself  a  kind  of  parliament.  Its  forms  were  borrowed 
not  from  the  Councils  of  the  Church,  but  from  the 
Scottish  Parliaments.  The  ouvertiires  of  the  Parliament 
are  the  overtures  of  the  Assembly.^  It  was  a  very 
different  body  then  from  that  to  which,  by  successive 
purifications  of  the  lay  element,  it  has  since  been 
reduced.  The  King,  the  Regent,  the  Privy  Council- 
ors, the  Barons,  had  a  seat  and  a  vote  in  it  when 
they  chose  to  exercise  them.  The  qualification  of 
King  as  elder  was  not  insisted  on.  When  the  great 
laymen  came  in  any  numbers  the  ministers  were  com- 
pelled to  sit  outside  the  bar.  The  presence  of  the  Re- 
gent and  the  nobility  was  felt  by  the  Assembly  itself 
to  be  "  most  comfortable  and  most  earnestly  wished 
of  all,  and  his  absence  most  dolorous  and  lament- 
able." =^ 

In  the  Westminster  Assembly  the  advance  of  Scot- 
tish theology  depended  considerably  on  the  advance* 
of  the  Scottish  army.  The  English  members  of  par- 
liament were  always  passing  in  and  out  of  the  Jeru- 
salem Chamber,  and  kept  a  constant  watch  over  its 
deliberations. 

1  The  original  movement  of  the    cession,  c.  v.     Cunningham,  i.  481, 
Scottish    Reformation   was   not  so    483. 

much  popular  as  baronial.  The  *  Read  Baillie's  Letters.  "  He 
great  lords  held  the  cause  in  their  allows  that  the  pressure  of  the  Scot- 
own  hands,  and  by  their  influence  tish  army  helped  forward  the  accept- 
mainly  it  was  decided.  ance   of   the    Scottish   theology   in 

2  Burton,  i.  567.  Westminster."     Chalmers'  Life,  iii. 

3  See  Turner's  History  of  the  Se-  437. 


116     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lkct.  III. 

The  Covenant,  as  we  have  seen,  invoked  in  the 
strongest  terms  the  aid  of  the  State,  and  only  turned 
against  the  State  when  the  State  turned  against  the 
Covenant. 

This  brings  us  from  the  fierce  struggles  of  the 
fifteenth  to  those  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Even 
on  the  face  of  the  general  movement  there  are  traces 
of  a  milder  spirit. 

The  Westminster  Confession,  complete  as  it  seemed 
to  be,  was  yet  from  the  first  seen  to  partake  of  the 
latitude  and  largeness  of  a  compromise.  It  contained 
no  special  mention  of  divine  order,  or  necessity  of 
the  ecclesiastical  offices  recognized  in  the  Presby- 
terian Church.  In  the  regulations  for  the  Eucharist^ 
there  is  nothing  to  guard  against  a  free  communion. 
Professor  Mitchell,  of  St.  Andrew's,  has  ably  pointed 
out  the  liberal  tendency  of  many  of  its  statements, 
as  might  be  expected  from  an  assembly  which  con- 
tained such  men  as  Selden,  Lightfoot,  and  Calamy. 
Still  more  clearly  is  this  visible  in  individual  ex- 
amples. 

It  has  been  sometimes  complained  that  Walter 
Scott's  character  of  Henry  Morton  in  "  Old  Mortal- 
ity," with  his  enlarged  views  and  philosophic  Chris- 
tianity, is  an  anachronism.  But  to  any  student  of 
those  times  it  is  evident  that  the  great  master  was  in 
this  instance  as  faithful  to  historical  truth  as  when 
he  painted  Mause  Headrigg  or  Sergeant  Bothwell. 
Not  only  is  the  prototype  of  Morton  to  be  found  in 

'   Confession,  xxvi.  21.    The  spe-  tion,  and   wore   intensified   in    the 

cial  precautions  which  limited  this  seceding  Churches.     See  Grub,  iii. 

freedom  as  well  as  the  more  strin-  125,  and  Moncrieff's  Life  of  Ers- 

gcnt  forms  of  subscription,  were  the  kine,  p.  139. 
work  of  later  ecclesiastical  lesrisla- 


Lect.  in.  IN  THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.  117 

the  contemporary  school  of  the  English  Latitudina- 
rians  who  had  gathered  round  Lord  Falkland  in  the 
vale  of  Great  Tew,  or  round  Cud  worth  in  the  Platonic 
repose  of  Cambridge ;  but  in  Scotland  also  his  like- 
ness may  again  and  again  be  traced.  Just  such  a 
man  —  half  Presbyterian  and  half  Episcopalian  — 
had  been  Patrick  Forbes,  the  laird  of  Corse,  who  in 
early  youth  had  been  the  friend  of  Andrew  Melville, 
and  who  in  later  life  reluctantly  accepted  the  bishop- 
ric of  Aberdeen  from  James  I.  "If  wherein  our 
doubt  seemeth  defection,  his  Highness  would  so  far 
pity  our  weakness  and  consider  our  peace  as  to  en- 
force nothing  but  what  first  in  a  free  and  national 
council  were  determined,  wherein  his  Highness  would 
neither  make  any  man  afraid  with  terror,  nor  pervert 
the  judgment  of  any  with  hope  of  favor,  then  men 
may  adventure  to  do  service.  But  if  things  be  so 
violently  carried  as  no  end  may  appear  of  bitter  con- 
tention, nor  any  place  left  to  men  in  office  but  to  stir 
the  coals  of  detestable  debate,  for  me  I  have  no  cour- 
age to  be  a  partner  in  that  work^  I  wish  my  heart's 
blood  might  extinguish  the  ungracious  rising  flame  in 
our  Church."  ^  That  is  Henry  Morton  all  over.  That 
is  the  true  statesmanlike  and  Christianlike  policy 
which  might  yet  have  saved  Episcopacy  and  Presby- 
terianism  alike  from  their  worst  excesses.  And  Pa- 
trick Forbes  was  no  hireling  priest  or  skeptical  philos- 
opher. He  had  become  a  lay  preacher  at  the  urgent 
entreaty  both  of  his  Episcopalian  and  Presbyterian 
neighbors ;  and  he  became  a  bishop  in  the  hope  of 
moderating  the  passions  of  the  Episcopal  party.  If 
even  he,  too,  was  afterwards  led  away  by  the  frenzy 

^  See  Bishop  Forbes's  Funerals.     Grub,  ii.  34. 


118     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAISID     Lkct.  lU. 

of  the  time,  yet  he  retained  enough  of  his  original 
goodness  to  call  down  the  eulogy,  not  only  of  those 
whom  he  joined,  but  even  of  some  of  those  whom  he 
had  left.  Wodrow  regarded  him  as  the  "  best  of  the 
Scottish  prelates ; "  and  the  Aberdeen  colleges  re- 
mained a  monument  of  his  enlightened  zeal,  when 
almost  every  trace  of  the  Scottish  Episcopate  per- 
ished. 

But  it  is  in  the  history  of  the  next  generation  that 
this  element  of  Scottish  religion  began  to  exercise  a 
wider  influence. 

Look  at  the  deputation  of  Scottish  ministers  who 
Robert  went  up  to  Loudou  for  the  rearrangement  of 
Douglas.  |.|j^  Church  at  the  time  of  the  Restoration. 
Some  of  them  were  obscure  enough ;  but  two  were 
men  of  sufficient  interest  to  redeem  the  character  of 
any  school  of  thought  from  insignificance  or  contempt. 
One  was  Robert  Douglas.  He  held  the  highest  place 
in  the  Scottish  Church.  He  had  been  twice  mode- 
rator. He  had  preached  the  coronation  sermon  of 
Charles  II.  at  Scone.  He  was  one  of  the  chief  promot- 
ers of  the  Restoration.  He  was  a  stanch  Presbyte- 
rian, convinced  of  the  divine  right  of  Presbytery,  full 
of  zeal  for  the  Covenant.^  But  he  was  always  against 
extreme  measures.  "He  was,"  says  Burnet,  who 
knew  him  in  his  old  age,  "  a  reserved  man  —  too  calm 
and  grave  for  the  furious  men,  yet  much  depended 
on  for  his  prudence  "  —  too  prudent,  indeed,  Burnet 
thought  him  —  "for  he  durst  not  own  the  free 
thoughts  he  had  of  some  things  for  fear  of  offending 
the  people."  His  theology  was  thus  described  by 
the  partisans  who  were  eager  to  scent  out  those  free 

I  Wodrow,  ii.  329. 


Lect.  III.     IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.         119 

thouglits  :  "  He  had  a  singula)'  ivay  of  'preaching,  without 
doctrines,  ivhich  some  called  scumming  the  text."  ^  He  re- 
garded Ruthford's  fanatical  "  Protestation  "  in  behalf 
of  the  Covenant  as  "  the  highest  breach  of  all  the 
articles  of  the  Covenant  that  ever  was  since  the 
work  of  Reformation  began."  He  was  "  a  great  State 
preacher,  one  of  the  greatest  of  that  age  in  Scotland 
—  for  he  feared  no  man  to  declare  the  mind  of  God 
to  him  —  yet  very  accessible,  and  easy  to  be  con- 
versed with.  Unless  a  man  were  for  God,  he  had  no 
value  for  him,  let  him  be  never  so  great  and  noble."  ^ 
He  lived  on  gracious  terms  with  his  opponents. 
Of  one  of  the  ministers  with  whom  he  had  variance 
on  some  ecclesiastical  matters,  he  said,  "  I  love  hira 
as  my  own  soul."  Against  Sharpe,  no  doubt,  he  spoke 
angrily,  but  probably  because  he  believed  him  insin- 
cere. "  Take  it,  James,"  he  said,  when  there  was 
the  question  of  the  archbishopric  of  St.  Andrew's; 
"  take  it,  and  the  curse  of  God  be  on  you  for  your 
treacherous  dealing."  ^  "  Brother,  no  more  brother, 
James.  If  my  conscience  had  been  as  yours,"  he 
said  to  Sharpe,  "  I  could  have  been  Bishop  of  St. 
Andrew's  before  you."  "  But,"  he  added  to  some  one 
else,  "  I  will  never  be  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrew's 
unless  I  be  Chancellor  of  Scotland  also,  as  some  were 
before  me."  He  was,  in  fact,  a  statesman  as  much 
as  a  divine.  He  had  served  as  chaplain  in  the  army 
of  Gustavus  Adolphus ;  and  that  great  king  was 
reported  to  have  said  of  him  when  he  took  leave  : 
"There   is  a  man  who,   for   wisdom   and  prudence, 

1  Wodrow's  Analecta,\.  166;  iii.        3  Burton,  vii.  405.     Scott's  His- 
82,  83,  298.  tonj  of  Scotland. 

-  Wodrow's  Analecta,  iii.  82,  83. 


120    MODEEATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  IH. 

might  be  counselor  to  any  prince  in  Europe ;  he 
mio-ht  be  a  moderator  to  a  General  Council ;  and 
even  for  military  skill  I  could  very  freely  trust  my 
army  to  his  conduct."  Yet  in  his  statesmanship  he 
never  lost  his  sacred  character.  He  had,  whilst  in 
the  army  of  Gustavus,  got  the  most  part  of  all  the 
Bible  in  his  memory,  having  then  taken  no  other 
book  to  read,  so  that  "  he  was  as  a  concordance  to 
the  exactness  of  a  Jew."  ^ 

He  was  one  of  those  whom  we  sometimes  meet  in 
history,  evidently  far  greater  than  circumstances  per- 
mitted them  to  show  themselves.  There  was  a 
majesty  and  authority  in  his  face  that  caused  those 
who  looked  at  him  to  stand  in  awe  of  him  ;  "  an  air 
of  greatness,"  says  Burnet,  "  that  made  all  that  knew 
him  inclined  to  believe  he  was  of  no  ordinary  de- 
scent." If  anything  could  enhance  the  interest  of 
this  mysterious,  lofty-minded  man,  —  "  the  great  Mr. 
Douo-las,"  as  he  was  called,  —  it  would  be  the  extraor- 
dinary  parentage  to  which  these  words  of  Burnet 
point.  True  or  false,  the  romantic  story  was  cher- 
ished in  the  popular  belief  that  his  grandflither  was 
George  Douglas  of  Lochleven,  and  his  grandmother 
the  illustrious  captive  of  that  famous  castle.^ 

If  of  Douglas  we  unfortunately  know  but  little, 
we  are  fully  informed  as  to  one  of  his  companions. 
Robert  Leighton  was  the  one  saint  common  both  to 
the  Presbyterian  and  the  Episcopalian  Church.  His 
whole  education  and  early  ministry  was  Presbyterian. 
His  outward  form  of  doctrine  was  a  temperate  Cal- 

1  Burnet,  Own  Time,  i.  34.  Wod-  lecia,  i.  166.  Burton,  v.  103;  vii. 
row's  Analecta,  iii.  82.  405,  406. 

2  Burnet,  i.  34.     Wodrow's  Ana- 


Lect.  IIL  IN   THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.  121 

vinism.  The  work  by  which  he  is  chiefly  known,  his 
"  Commentary  on  St.  Peter's  Epistles,"  was  written 
when  he  was  in  charge  of  the  parish  of  Newbattle. 
It  was  only  in  later  life  that,  for  a  few  years,  he  re- 
luctantly entered,  and  then  gladly  quitted  the  office 
of  Bishop  and  Archbishop,  which  he  had  chiefly  used 
for  the  sake  of  reconciling  Presbyterianism  and  Epis- 
copacy together. 

He  was,  indeed,  a  man  whom  either  church  might  be 
glad  to  claim.  But  the  peculiarity  of  his  po-  Robert 
sition  was,  that  he  combined  a  sanctity  equal  l^'«'^*°°- 
to  that  of  the  strictest  Covenanter  or  the  strictest  Epis- 
copalian, with  a  liberality  in  his  innermost  thoughts 
equal  to  that  of  the  widest  Latitudinarian  of  the  school 
of  Jeremy  Taylor  or  of  Hoadley.  Let  us  look  at  both 
these  points  more  minutely.  They  both  appear  far 
more  strongly  in  the  records  of  his  life  and  conversa- 
tion than  could  be  inferred  from  his  published  writings. 

There  are  few  men  whose  character  gives  the  im- 
pression of  a  more  complete  elevation  both  above 
the  cares  and  the  prejudice  of  the  world  —  of  a  more 
entire  detachment  from  earth. 

Sometimes  this  appeared  in  his  playful  sayings 
on  the  misfortunes  of  life.  On  some  great  Hisdevo- 
pecuniary  loss  he  made  a  jesting  remark.  *'°°* 
"  What !  "  said  his  relation ;  "  is  that  all  you  make  of 
the  matter  ? "  "  Truly,"  answered  Leighton,  "  if  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  after  losing  nineteen  times  as 
much  of  yearly  income,  can  dance  and  sing,  while 
the  solid  hopes  of  Christians  will  not  avail  to  support 
us,  we  had  better  be  as  the  world."  Once  as  a  party 
embarked  on  the  Thames  in  a  boat  between  the  Savoy 
and  Lambeth,  the  boat  was  in  imminent  danger  of 


122     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  IH. 

sinking,  and  most  of  them  crying  out,  Leigliton  never 
lost  his  serenity  ;  and,  to  some  ^vho  expressed  their 
astonishment,  replied,  "Why,  what  harm  would  it 
have  been  if  we  had  all  been  safe  landed  on  the  other 
side!" 

More  often  he  expressed  this  gravely.  "It  is  in 
vain,"  he  would  say,  "  for  any  one  to  speak  of  divine 
things,  without  something  of  divine  affections.  An 
ungodly  clergyman  must  feel  uneasy  when  preaching 
godliness,  and  will  hardly  preach  it  persuasively.  He 
has  not  been  able  to  prevail  on  himself  to  be  holy, 
and  no  marvel  if  he  i^iil  of  prevailing  on  others.  In 
truth  he  is  in  danger  of  becoming  hardened  against 
religion  by  the  frequent  inculcation  of  it,  if  it  fail  of 
melting  him." 

He  felt  deeply  the  weariness  of  the  world  and  of 
the  Church.  "I  have  met  with  many  cunning  plot- 
ters, but  with  few  truly  honest  and  skillful  undertak- 
ers. Many  have  I  seen  who  were  wise  and  great  as 
to  this  world  ;  but  of  such  as  are  willing  to  be  weak 
that  others  may  be  strong,  and  whose  only  aim  it  is 
to  promote  the  prosperity  of  Zion,  I  have  not  found 
one  in  ten  thousand." 

To  the  Lord's  Prayer  he  was  specially  partial,  and 
said  :  "  0 !  the  spirit  of  this  prayer  would  make  rare 
Christians."  ^  "  One  devout  thought  is  worth  all  my 
books."  ^  The  Psalter  he  called  "  a  bundle  of  myrrh 
that  ought  to  lie  day  and  night  in  the  bosom."  ^ 
Scarce  a  line  in  it  that  had  passed  without  the  stroke 
of  his  pencil.  "  My  uncle  did  not  give  thanks,"  ob- 
served  his  little  nephew,  "like  other  folks." ^     His 

1  Pearson's  Life  of  Leighton,  vol.        3  Ibid.  p.  cxvi. 
i.  p.  cxiii.  *  Ibid.  p.  cxviii. 

8  Ibid.  p.  cxiv. 


Lect.  III.  IN   THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.  123 

longing  to  depcart  grew  into  a  passion.  "  To  be  con- 
tent to  stay  always  in  this  world,"  he  said,  "  is  above 
the  obedience  of  angels.  Those  holy  spirits  are  em- 
ployed according  to  the  perfection  of  their  natures, 
and  restlessness  in  hymns  of  praise  is  their  only  rest. 
But  the  utmost  we  poor  mortals  can  attain  to  is  to 
lie  awake  in  the  dark,  and  a  great  piece  of  art  and 
patience  it  is  spatiosam  fallei-e  noctem."  Often  would 
he  bewail  the  proneness  of  Christians  to  stop  short 
of  perfection ;  and  it  was  his  grief  to  observe,  that 
"some  good  men  are  content  to  be  loiv  and  sUuited 
vines."  ^ 

This  is  a  letter  to  a  friend  when  he  was  Principal 
of  the  University  of  Edinburgh :  "  0  !  what  a  weari- 
ness is  it  to  live  amongst  men  and  find  so  few  men, 
and  amongst  Christians  and  find  so  few  Christians ; 
so  much  talk  and  so  little  action ;  religion  turned 
almost  into  a  tune  and  air  of  words  ;  and,  amidst  all 
our  pretty  discourses,  pusillanimous  and  base,  and  so 
easily  dragged  into  the  mire  ;  self  and  flesh,  and  pride 
and  passion  domineering,  while  we  speak  of  being  in 
Christ  and  clothed  with  Him,  and  believe  it,  because 
we  speak  it  so  often  and  so  confidently.^  Well,  I 
know  you  are  not  willing  to  be  thus  gulled,  and,  hav- 
ing some  glances  of  the  beauty  of  holiness,  aim  no 
lower  than  perfection,  which  is  the  end  we  hope  to 
attain,  and  in  the  mean  time  the  smallest  advances 
towards  it  are  more  worth  than  crowns  and  sceptres. 
I  believe  it  you  often  think  on  those  words  of  the 
blessed  Apostle  Paul  [on  the  corruptible  and  incor- 
ruptible reward].  There  is  a  noble  guest  within  us. 
0  let  all  our  business  be  to  entertain  Him  honorably, 

1  Pearson's  Life  o/Leighton,  vol.  i.  p.  cxix.  2  H^id,  p.  eiii. 


124     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND      Lect.  III. 

and  to  live  in  celestial  love  within  ;  that  will  make  all 
things  without  to  be  very  contemptible  in  our  eyes, 
I  should  run  on  did  I  not  stop  myself.  Therefore, 
'  good  niglit '  is  all  I  add,  for  whatever  hour  it  comes 
to  your  lot,  I  believe  you  are  as  sensible  as  I  that  it 
still  is  night ;  but  the  comfort  is,  it  draws  nigh  to- 
wards that  brio;ht  mornino;." 

This  eagerness  resulted  from  his  earnest  desire  "to 
see  and  enjoy  perfection  in  the  perfect  sense  of  it, 
which  he  could  not  do  and  live.  That  consummation 
is  a  hope  deferred,  but  when  it  cometh  it  will  be  a 
tree  of  life."  He  longed  to  escape  from  the  public 
toils  in  which  he  was  involved,  "  if  only  into  the  air, 
among  the  birds."  "  Though  I  have  great  retirement 
here  at  Dunblane,"  he  writes  to  his  sister, —  "as  great 
and  possibly  greater  than  I  could  find  anywhere  else, 
—  yet  I  am  still  panting  for  a  retreat  from  this  phice, 
and  all  public  charge,  and  next  to  rest  in  the  grave. 
It  is  the  pressingest  desire  of  anything  I  have  in  this 
world ;  and,  if  it  might  be,  with  you  or  near  you." 
To  close  his  life  was,  he  said,  "  like  a  .traveller  pulling 
off  his  miry  boots."  His  well-known  wish  was  to  die 
in  an  inn  —  "  the  whole  world  being  a  large  and  noisy 
inn,  and  he  a  wayfarer  tarrying  in  it  as  short  a  time 
as  possible."  So,  in  fact,  he  breathed  his  last  in  the 
Bell  Inn,  Warwick  Lane. 

With  this  singular  spirit  of  devotion  was  combined 
Hisiati-      a  freedom  of  thought  and  elevation  above 

tudinarian-  •      t  p         •  i  •    i         • 

ism.  the  common  prejudices  oi  samts,  which  give 

him  a  rare  place  amongst  divines.  He  was  fully 
aware  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  popular  prob- 
lems of  theology.  To  his  nephew,  who  complained 
that  there  was  a  certain  text  of  Scripture  which  he 


Lect.  III.  IN  THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.  125 

could  not  understand,  his  answer  was,  "  And  many 
more  that  I  cannot."  Being  once  asked  about  the 
saints  reigning  with  Christ,  he  eluded  the  question  by 
replying,  "  If  we  suffer  with  Him,  we  shall  also  reign 
with  Him  ; "  and,  when  pressed  still  further,  answered 
at  last :  "  If  God  hath  appointed  any  such  thing  for 
us  He  will  give  us  heads  to  bear  such  liquor.  Our 
preferment  will  not  make  us  reel."  To  curiosity  on 
such  points  he  answered  in  the  words  of  the  angel  to 
Manoah,  "  Why  askest  thou  thus  after  my  name, 
seeing  it  is  secret?"  "Enough,"  he  said,  "is  dis- 
covered to  satisfy  us  that  righteousness  and  judgment 
are  within,  though  round  about  his  throne  are  clouds 
and  darkness."  "That  prospect  of  predestination 
and  election,"  he  said,  "  is  a  great  abyss  into  which  I 
choose  to  sink  rather  than  attempt  to  sound  it.  And 
truly  any  attempt  to  throw  light  upon  it  makes  it 
only  a  greater  abyss." 

He  fully  entered  into  the  doubts  and  difficulties  of 
others ;  and,  even  whilst  most  condemning  them,  be- 
lieved them  to  be  quite  compatible  with  a  true  love 
of  God.  "Whatever  be  the  particular  thoughts  or 
temptations  that  disquiet  you,  look  above  them  and 
below  to  fix  your  eyes  on  that  infinite  goodness  which 
never  faileth  them  that  (by  naked  faith)  do  abso- 
lutely rely  and  rest  upon  it,  and  patiently  wait  on  Him 
who  hath  pronounced  them  all  (without  exception) 
blessed  that  do  so."  "Say  often  within  your  own 
heart,  'Though  He  slay  me  yet  will  I  trust  in  Him.' 
And  if,  after  some  intervals,  j^our  troubled  thoughts 
do  return,  check  them  still  with  the  holy  Psalmist's 
words, '  Why  art  thou  so  cast  down,  0  my  soul  ?  '  " 
Whilst  disposed  almost  to  a  monastic  seclusion  of 


126    MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND      Lect.  III. 

religious  meditation,  —  to  the  practice,  as  he  would 
sa}^,  of  constantly  dressing  and  undressing  his  soul  in 
devotional  exercises,  —  he  yet  felt  that  a  mixed  life 
was  the  most  excellent.^  He  ventured  to  call  it,  thus 
reversing  the  common  use  of  the  word,  "  an  angelical 
life;"  as  being  "a  life  spent  between  ascending  to 
fetch  blessings  from  above  and  descending  to  scatter 
them  among;  mortals."  He  hated  the  notion  of 
"  dressing  religion  with  a  hood  and  bells."  ^ 

He  was  the  only  man  of  that  age  —  we  may  al- 
most say  of  any  age  —  that  deliberately  set  himself, 
as  to  the  work  of  his  life,  to  the  union  of  the  two 
Churches.  He  was  absolutely  indifferent  to  the 
forms  of  either.  "  The  mode  of  church  government," 
he  said  "  is  unconstrained ;  but  peace  and  concord, 
kindness  and  good  will  are  indispensable.  But,  alas! 
I  rarely  find  men  bound  with  a  holy  resolution  to 
contend  for  the  substance  more  than  the  ceremony, 
and  disposed  in  weak  and  indifferent  things  to  be 
weak  and  compliant."  ^ 

It  was  this  supreme  indifference  to  forms,  and  this 
intense  desire  of  union  which  caused  him  not  only  to 
accept,  however  unwillingly,  the  office  of  a  bishop, 
but  to  accept  the  conditions  of  being  reordained  by 
Episcopal  ordination.  It  was  nothing  to  him  how 
often  he  was  reordained.  It  was  in  his  eyes  a  mere 
form  which  conveyed  of  itself  no  additional  sanctity; 
and,  therefore,  whilst  the  worldly  Sharpe  hesitated, 
the  holy  Leighton  saw  no  difficulty.  It  was  the  like 
indifference,  which,  when  he  came  to  Scotland,  in- 
duced him  to  use  every  means  of  conciliation  to  en- 
able Presbyterians  to  come  into  friendly  terms  with 

1  Pearson,  p.  cxiv.  2  Ibid.  p.  cxvi.  3  Ibid.  p.  cxiii. 


Lect.  m.     IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.        127 

the  bishops.  He  entreated  the  Episcopahans  to 
abstain  from  imitating  the  severities  of  the  Cove- 
nanters, justifying  the  sarcasm,  that  "the  world  goes 
mad  by  turns."  ^ 

Strictly  Protestant  as  he  was,  whether  as  taken 
from  his  dogmatical  or  his  latitudinarian  side,  he  yet 
had  an  indulgence  even  for  Roman  Catliolics,  at  that 
time  very  unusual.  To  a  "highflying  Scotsman," 
who  said  to  him,  "  Sir,  I  hear  your  grandfather  was  a 
Papist,  your  father  a  Presbyterian,  and  you  a  bishop 
—  what  a  mixture  is  this  !  "  he  replied,  "  It 's  true,  sir ; 
and  my  grandfather  was  the  honestest  man  of  the 
three."  ^  Some  one  was  told  to  ask  him  what  he 
thought  of  the  Beast,  adding,  "  I  told  the  inquirer  that 
you  would  certainly  answer  you  could  not  tell." 
"  Truly  you  said  well,"  replied  Leighton ;  "  but  if  I 
was  to  fancy  what  it  were,  it  would  be  something  with 
a  pair  of  horns  that  pusheth  his  neighbors,  as  both 
have  so  much  practiced  of  late  in  Church  and  State." 
lie  strongly  condemned  the  zeal  of  proselytizers, 
whether  Roman  or  Protestant,  "who  fetched  ladders 
from  hell  to  scale  heaven."  "  I  prefer,"  he  said,  "  an 
erroneous  honest  man  to  the  most  orthodox  knave  in 
the  world ;  and  I  would  rather  convince  a  man  that 
he  has  a  soul  to  save,  and  induce  him  to  live  up  to 
that  belief,  than  bring  him  over  to  any  opinions  in 
whatsoever  else  beside.  Would  to  God  men  were 
but  as  holy  as  they  might  be  in  the  worst  of  forms 
now  among  us.  Let  us  press  them  to  be  holy,  and 
miscarry  if  they  can."  Being  told  of  a  person  who 
had  changed  his  persuasion,  all  he  said  was,  "  Is  he 

1  Pearson,  p.  cxiii.  2  Wodrow's  Analecta,  i.  26. 


128     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OE  SCOTLAND    Lect.  Ill, 

more  meek  —  more  dead  to  the  world  ?  If  so,  he  has 
made  a  happy  change."  ^ 

His  aphorisms  are  full  of  spiritual  wisdom.  "  One 
half  the  world  lives  upon  the  weakness  of  the  other." 
"  All  things  operate  according  to  the  disposition  of 
the  subject."  "  It  is  better  to  send  a  congregation 
home  still  hungry  than  surfeited."  "  Deliver  me,  0 
Lord"  he  used  to  say,  ^'-  from  the  errors  of  wise  men,  yea 
and  of  good  men''  ^ 

One  single  expression,  perhaps,  best  shows  the 
secret  at  once  of  his  unworldliness,  his  humor,  and 
his  high  philosophy.  He  was  reprimanded  in  a 
synod  for  not  "  preaching  up  the  times."  "  Who," 
he  asked,  "does  preach  up  the  times?"  It  was  an- 
swered that  all  the  brethren  did  it.  "  Then,"  he  re- 
joined, "  if  all  of  you  preach  up  the  times,  you  may 
surely  allow  one  poor  brother  to  preach  up  Christ 
Jesus  and  Eternity  !  "  ^ 

Such  a  breadth  of  view  provoked,  as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, the  suspicions  and  attacks  of  narrow  zealots. 
"Mr.  Guthrie  used  to  say,  in  the  time  of  hearing  him 
preach  he  was  as  in  heaven  ;  but  he  could  not  bring 
one  word  with  him  almost  out  of  church  doors  — 
referring  to  his  haranguing  way  of  preaching  without 
heads." ' 

He  was  thought  to  be  "  lax  in  his  principles  anent 
the  divinity  of  Christ,  and  upon  the  matter  an 
Arian  "  ^  —  "  very  much  suspected  to  be  an  Arian, 
and  vented  several  things  that  way."  Mr.  David 
Dickson    complained  of  his   expositions  on  charity. 

1  Pearson's  Life  of  Leighton,  vol.        3  Ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  xvi. 

i.  p.  cxxvii.  ^  Wodrow's  Analecta,  ii.  348. 

2  Ibid.  p.  cxvi.  5  Ibid.  i.  274  ;  ii.  212. 


LEcr.  III.  IN  THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.  129 

"People  should  not  make  a  fool  of  their  charity." 
Leighton  replied,  "  I  do  not  know  what  you  mean, 
but  the  Scripture  makes  a  fool  of  charity,  for  it  says, 
^  Fools  bear  all  things,  and  charity  beareth  all 
things.'  "  The  austere  Wodrow  cannot  forbear  to 
add  the  comment  on  this  playful  remark,  —  "A very 
light  expression."  ^ 

He  gave  great  scandal  at  Edinburgh  by  recom- 
mending "  Thomas  a  Kempis "  as  one  of  the  best 
books  ever  written,  next  to  the  inspired  writers. 
"  Mr.  Dickson  refused  it,  because,  amongst  other 
reasons,"  he  added,  "  neither  Christ's  satisfaction 
nor  the  doctrine  of  grace,  but  self  and  merits  run 
through  it."^ 

"What  the  effect  of  Leighton's  character  was  on  his 
contemporaries  appears  from  the  remarks  of  Burnet. 
Totally  unlike  as  that  forward,  restless,  active  prelate 
must  have  been  to  the  retiring  and  sensitive  Leigh- 
ton,  his  testimony  is  the  more  striking.  "I  bear  still 
the  greatest  veneration  for  the  memory  of  that  man 
that  I  do  for  any  person,  and  reckon  my  early  knowl- 
edge of  him,  and  very  long  and  intimate  connection 
with  him  for  twenty-three  years,  among  the  greatest 
blessings  of  my  life,  and  for  which  I  know  I  must 
give  account  to  God  in  the  great  day  in  a  most 
particular  manner.  He  had  the  greatest  elevation 
of  soul,  the  largest  compass  of  knowledge,  the  most 
sanctified  and  heavenly  disposition  that  I  ever  yet 
saw  in  mortal.  He  had  the  greatest  parts  as  well  as 
virtues  with  the  perfectest  humility  that  ever  I  saw 
in  man.  He  had  a  sublime  strain  in  preaching  with 
so  grave  a  gesture,   and   such   a   majesty   both    of 

1  Wodrow,  Analecta,  iii.  452.  2  Ibid.  ii.  349. 

9 


130     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND    Lect.  HI. 

thought,  of  langUcage,  and  of  pronunciation,  that  I 
never  once  saw  a  wandering  eye  when  he  preached, 
and  have  seen  whole  assemblies  often  melt  in  tears 
before  him.  I  never  heard  him  say  an  idle  word 
that  had  not  a  direct  tendency  to  edification,  and  I 
never  once  saw  him  in  any  temper  but  that  which  I 
wished  to  be  in  at  the  last  moments  of  my  life." 

"We  can  still  figure  to  ourselves  the  Cathedral  of 
Memorials  Dunblauc,  as  it  appeared  during  his  minis- 
ton,  trations.  The  beautiful  nave  was  probably 
as  it  is  now  —  complete  in  all  its  proportions,  save 
the  roof  The  choir  was  lined  with  the  old  stalls  of 
the  fifteenth  century;  but  round  the  walls  ran  an 
unsightly  gallery  now  removed.  The  Bishop's  house 
opened  on  the  grassy  slopes  leading  down  to  the  Al- 
lan, along  whose  steep  banks  was  an  avenue  of  trees, 
still  known  by  the  name  of  the  Bishop's  Walk ;  and 
the  library  founded  by  him  yet  remains,  alone  of 
inhabited  ecclesiastical  edifices  in  Scotland  retaining 
a  mitre  over  the  door. 

In  England,  his  burial-place  at  Horsted  Keynes  is 
still  venerated,  and  his  "  Commentary  on  St.  Peter," 
alone  of  ancient  Scottish  works  of  theology,  is  read 
on  the  south  of  the  Tweed ;  and  the  "  Aphorisms " 
drawn  from  it  have  been  made  the  basis  of  one  of 
the  most  philosophical  of  English  theological  trea- 
tises, —  Coleridge's  "  Aids  to  Reflection." 

It  is  not  without  reason  that  I  have  dwelt  at  such 
length  on  the  character  of  Leighton.  Not  only  does 
such  a  character  of  itself  consecrate  the  Church  in 
which  he  was  born  and  bred,  but  it  sheds  its  own 
lustre  on  the  special  tendency  which  it  exemplified. 
However  much,  in  later  days,  tlie  Moderate  party  in 


Lect.  III.     IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.        131 

the  Church  of  Scotland  may  have  seemed  to  become 
"  of  the  earth  earthy,"  it  is  something  for  them  to 
be  able  to  claim,  as  their  pattern,  the  most  apostol- 
ical of  all  Protestant  Scotsmen.  However  chimerical 
may  seem  in  our  days  an  equal  respect  to  Episco- 
pacy and  Presbyterianism,  it  is  enough  that  the  pro- 
jected—  the  all  but  completed  —  union  between 
them  originated  in  a  head  so  clear  and  a  heart  so 
pure  as  Leighton's. 

We  pass  on  to  another,  who  is  also  commemorated 
by  Burnet,  Lawrence  Charteris,  minister  of 

•  n  A        •^^  i^    t\-   ^  Charteris. 

the  beautiful  village  of  Dirleton,  who  was 
"often  moved  to  accept  a  bishopric,  but  always 
refused  it."  "  He  was  a  perfect  friend  and  a  most 
sublime  Christian.  He  did  not  talk  of  the  defects 
of  his  time  like  an  angry  reformer,  that  set  up  in 
that  strain'  because  he  was  neglected  or  provoked ; 
but  like  a  man  full  of  a  deep  but  humble  sense  of 
them.  He  was  a  great  enemy  to  large  confessions 
of  faith,  chiefly  when  they  were  imposed  in  the 
lump,  as  tests;  for  he  was  positive  in  few  things. 
He  had  gone  through  the  chief  parts  of  learning; 
but  was  most  conversant  in  history  as  the  innocent- 
est  sort  of  study,  that  did  not  fill  the  mind  with  sub- 
tlety, but  helped  to  make  a  man  wiser  and  better."  ^ 
It  is  impossible  to  imagine  anything  breathing  more 
fully  the  best  spirit  of  Christian  latitude  than  his 
address  to  his  people  on  the  Fast  Day  of  1690  :  "  All 
who  are  wise  and  who  have  a  right  sense  of  true 
religion  and  Christianity,  cannot  but  see  there  has 
been  a  great  defection  among  us.  The  defection 
has  not  been  from  the  truth,  or  from  the  funda- 

i  Burnet,  Own  Time,  i.  216. 


132     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND    Lect.  III. 

mental  articles  of  the  Christian  faith,  but  from  the 
life  of  God  and  the  power  of  religion,  and  from  the 
temper  and  conversation  which  the  Gospel  requires 
of  lis."  ' 

We  have  arrived  at  the  momentous  period  when 
the  Church  of  Scotland  entered  on  the  outward  con- 
ditions of  existence  under  which  it  has  continued 
The  word     cver  sincc.     It  was  now  that  there   began 

"Modera-        ■,         n   i-i  i  i   m  i   • 

tion."  the  full  ascendency  of  that  great  philosophic 
virtue  and  Evangelical  grace  in  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land, of  which  the  name  has  in  these  latter  days  been 
used  as  though  it  were  the  title  of  a  deadly  heresy, 
but  which  the  Apostle  has  employed  to  designate 
one  of  the  most  indispensable  of  Christian  duties  in 
the  impressive  precept,  "Let  your  moderation^  be 
known  unto  all  men."  What  the  Apostle  thus 
enjoined  was  the  key-note  of  the  address  of  the 
King's  Commissioner,  Lord  Carmichael,  when  after 
an  interval  of  forty  years  the  General  Assembly 
resumed  its  functions  in  1690 :  "  We  expect  that 
your  management  shall  be  such  as  we  shall  have  no 
reason  to  repent  of  what  we  have  done.  A  calm 
and  peaceable  procedure  will  be  no  less  pleasing  to 
us  than  it  becometh  you.  We  never  could  be  of 
the  mind  that  violence  was  suited  to  the  advancing 
of  true  religion ;  nor  do  we  intend  that  our  author- 
ity shall  ever  be  a  tool  to  the  irregular  passions  of 
any  party.  Moderation  is  what  religion  requires, 
neighboring  churches  expect  from,  and  we  recom- 
mend to  you." 

1  The  whole  address  is  given  in  "  sweet  reasonableness."  Still,  the 
Grub,  ii.  327.  word  "moderation,"  for  any  single 

2  The  original  word,  no  doubt,  phrase,  is  probably  the  best  that 
has  that  deeper  meaning  which  an  could  be  found. 

accomplished    critic    has  rendered 


Lect.  III.  IN   THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.  133 

This  was  the  true  "  Revolution  settlement/'  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word  —  this  was  the  Revolution 
call  to  which,  on  the  whole,  the  Church  of  ^^^^'e^^^'**^- 
Scotland  from  that  time  since  has  remained  faithful. 

The  first  great  preacher  of  this  new  national 
Covenant,  —  the  oracle  which,  we  can  hard- 
ly doubt,  inspired  that  royal  recommenda- 
tion to  the  General  Assembly,  was  one  of  the  most 
illustrious  benefactors  of  the  Scottish  Church  and 
nation.^  It  was  the  singular  fortune  of  King  Will- 
iam III.  to  have  had  for  his  two  most  intimate 
advisers  and  friends,  two  of  the  most  eminent  eccle- 
siastics of  Great  Britain,  both  of  them  Scots.  In  the 
south,  next  to  the  Primate  Tillotson,  was  Gilbert 
Burnet,  Bishop  of  Salisbury.  In  the  north  the  real 
Presbyterian  Primate  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
William  Carstairs. 

Carstairs  has'  left  nothing  in  writing ;  but  his  life 
is  filled  full  of  Christian  strength  and  wisdom.  His 
earliest  public  appearance  was  undergoing  the  ago- 
nizing trial  of  the  thumbscrew  before  the  Privy 
Council  in  Edinburgh.  All  present,  even  his  judges, 
were  struck  by  the  extraordinary  fortitude  and  gen- 
erosity of  a  man  "  who  stood  more  in  awe  of  his  love 
for  his  friends  than  of  the  fear  of  torture,  and 
hazarded  rather  to  die  for  them  than  that  they 
should  die  for  him." 

Recommended  to  the  Prince  of  Orange  by  this 

^  The  anecdotes  here  given  are  Carstairs    has    fallen    into  worthy 

mostly  taken  from  M'Cormick's  Pre-  hands,  —  the  Rev.  Herbert  Story,  of 

face    to    Carstairs'    State    Papers.  Rosneath,  who,  as  a  descendant  of 

Since  delivering  this  lectm-e  I  have  the  sister  of  that  eminent  man,  has 

been  delighted  to  hear  that  the  task  been    intrusted  with  the    original 

of  publishing  a  complete  memoir  of  letters. 


134     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND    Lect.  HI. 

heroic  courage,  as  well  as  by  the  singular  sagacity 
which  he  showed  on  the  same  occasion  in  revealing 
to  his  judges  only  what  was  of  no  use  to  them  and 
no  harm  to  any  one  else,  he  accompanied  William  on 
his  eventful  voyage  to  England,  and  was   the   first, 
Scotsman  and  Presbyterian  as  he  was,  to  call  down 
the  blessings  of  Heaven  on  the  expedition,  by  the 
religious  service  which  he  celebrated  immediately  on 
his  landing  at  Torbay,  after  which  the  troops  all  along 
the  beach,  at  his  instance,  joined  in  the  118th  Psalm. 
From  that  time  he  was  William's  companion  to  every 
field  of  battle  —  his  most  trusty  adviser  in  all  that 
related  to   the  affairs  of  Scotland.     "Cardinal  Car- 
stairs  "  was  the  name  by  which  he  was  usually  known, 
alluding  to  the  saying  of  Cardinal  Ximenes  that  he 
could  play  at  football  with  the  heads  of  the  Castilian 
grandees.     The  King  had  one  all-sufficing  explanar 
tion  of  his  influence :  "  I  have  known  Mr.  Carstairs 
lono- !  I  have  known  him  well ;  and  I  know  him  to  be 
an  honest  man."     One  famous  instance  of  his  power 
is  recorded,   unique  in  the  history  of  princes   and 
churches.   An  oath  ("  the  oath  of  assurance,"  as  it  was 
called),  extremely  obnoxious  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly, had  been  intended  by  the  English  Government 
to  be  imposed  on  its  members.     The  Commissioner 
sent  up   an  earnest  remonstrance   against   it  by  a 
special  messenger.     There  was  just  time  for  him  to 
return  to  Scotland  with  the  King's  final  determina- 
tion on  the  night  before  the  Assembly  was  appointed 
to  meet.     Carstairs  was  absent  when  the  messenger 
arrived  ;   and  in  that  interval  William,  under  the  ad- 
vice of  his  ministers,  refused  to  listen  to  the  remon- 
strance, and  sent  off  his  instructions  by  the  raessen- 


Lect.  III.  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  135 

ger.  When  Carstairs  arrived  at  Kensington,  he  heard 
what  had  happened.  He  found  the  messenger  setting 
off  for  Scotland,  and  demanded  him  in  the  King's 
name  to  deliver  up  the  dispatches.  It  was  now  late 
at  night ;  not  a  moment  was  to  be  lost.  He  ran  to  the 
royal  apartment,  and  was  told  by  the  lord  in  waiting 
that  the  King  was  in  bed.  He  insisted  on  entering 
and  found  William  fast  asleep,  drew  the  curtain,  threw 
himself  on  his  knees  by  the  bedside,  and  awakened 
him.  The  King,  startled,  asked  what  had  brought 
him,  and  for  what  he  knelt.  "  I  am  come  to  ask  my 
life."  "  What  can  you  have  done,"  said  William,  "  to 
deserve  death  ?  "  Carstairs  told  what  had  occurred. 
The  King  was  furious  ;  Carstairs  begged  only  for  a 
few  words  to  explain.  The  King  listened,  was  con- 
vinced, threw  the  dispatch  into  the  fire,  wrote  a  new 
one  at  the  dictation  of  Carstairs ;  the  messenger  set 
off,  and,  in  consequence  of  this  delay,  arrived  only 
just  in  time,  on  the  very  morning  of  the  fatal  day. 
The  crisis  was  averted,  and  the  constitutional  estab- 
lishment of  the  Church  of  Scotland  at  this  day  is, 
humanly  speaking,  the  result  of  that^  memorable 
night. 

He  afterwards  became  Principal  of  the  University 
of  Edinburgh,  and  his  Latin  orations  in  that  post 
made  his  hearers  fancy  themselves  transported  to 
the  Forum  of  ancient  Rome.  Four  times  in  eleven 
years  he  was  Moderator  of  the  General  Assembly, 
and  by  his  calm  words  in  that  chair  the  clergy  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland  were  induced  to  acquiesce  in  the 
Act  of  Union.    It  was  during  the  animosity  which  he 

1  The  accuracy  of  the  story  has  ascertained,  without  any  adequate 
heen  doubted  ;  but,  as  far  as  can  be    grounds. 


136      MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND    Lect.  III. 

incurred  on  that  occasion  that  his  colleague  in  Grey- 
friars'  Church,  of  which  he  was  the  minister,  who  was 
violently  opposed  to  the  Union,  made  a  fierce  attack 
upon  him  on  the  morning  of  a  certain  Sunday  on 
which  Carstairs  was  to  preach  in  the  afternoon. 
Whilst  this  attack  was  going  on,  the  eyes  of  the 
whole  congregation  were  fixed  on  Carstairs,  who, 
with  great  composure,  began  to  turn  over  the  leaves 
of  his  Bible.  In  the  afternoon  a  vast  concourse  as- 
sembled to  hear  him,  when  he  gave  out  for  his  text, 
"Let  the  righteous  smite  me,  it  will  not  break  my 
bones ; "  in  which  he  took  occasion  to  vindicate  his 
colleague  from  any  want  of  regard  for  him ;  that,  as 
he  knew  the  "  uprightness  of  his  colleague's  inten- 
tion and  the  goodness  of  his  heart,  he  was  determined 
to  consider  any  rebuke  directed  to  himself  from  that 
place  as  the  strongest  expression  of  his  love."  It 
need  not  be  said  that  congregation  and  colleague 
were  alike  vanquished. 

A  like  instance  of  his  kindly  temper  is  recorded 
by  the  younger  Calamy,  as  having  occurred  on  an 
occasion  when  he  was  present  in  the  General  Assem- 
bly. An  old  gentleman  in  the  most  insulting  tone 
had  attacked  Carstairs.  "  I,  sir,  am  as  good  a  man 
as  yourself;  bating  that  you  have  a  sprinkling  of 
court  holy  water  to  which  I  must  own  myself  a 
strano-er.  I  tell  you  again,  sir,  you  shall  withdraw, 
or  we'll  go  no  further."  ^  To  which  Carstairs,  "  with 
great  meekness,"  replied:  "' Dear  brother,  I  can 
more  easily  forgive  this  peevish  sally  of  yours  than 
you  perhaps  will  be  able  to  forgive  yourself  when 
you  come  to  reflect  upon  it,'  and  so  withdrew.     The 

1  Calamy's  Life,  ii.  159. 


Lect.  m.  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  137 

matter  in  dispute  was  soon  determined  by  the  As- 
sembly, but  the  angry  old  gentleman  could  not  rest 
without  asking  the  pardon  of  his  generous  foe." 

This  fine  good-humor  pervaded  all  the  relations  of 
life.  When  Calamy  told  him  the  insight  which  he 
had  acquired  into  the  practices  of  the  General  As- 
sembly, he  cried  out :  "  Verily,  to  spy  out  our  naked- 
ness are  you  come;  and  had  you  spent  ever  so  much 
time  in  contriving  a  way  to  discover  all  our  defects 
at  once,  you  could  not  have  fixed  on  one  more  effect- 
ual." "  One  thing,"  says  Calamy,  "  which  gave  a 
peculiar  relish  to  any  intercourse  with  the  College  at 
Edinburgh  was  the  entire  freedom  and  harmony  be- 
tween the  Principal  and  the  Masters,  they  expressing 
a  veneration  for  him  as  for  a  common  father,  and  he 
a  tenderness  for  them  as  though  they  had  been  his 
children.  Were  it  so  in  all  societies  of  that  sort," 
adds  Calamy,  "  they  would  be  much  more  likely  to 
answer  the  ends  of  their  institution,  than  by  running 
into  wrano;lino;s  and  contentions,  and  harborincj  mu- 
tual  jealousies  and  suspicions." 

When  Calamy  was  attacked,  and  not  without 
ground,  for  the  latitude  of  a  sermon  which  he  had 
preached  on  the  importance  of  being  contented  with 
the  name  of  "Christian,"  without  pretending  to  make 
any  addition,  by  which  in  reality  they  would  take 
from  it,  it  was  Carstairs  who,  with  "  great  mildness 
and  prudence,"  replied  to  the  fanatic  who  had  as- 
saulted him.^ 

It  may  be  well  to  fill  up  the  outline  of  the  public 
life  of  Carstairs  by  some  touching  private  incidents. 
When  he  was  imprisoned  in  the  castle  at  Edinburgh, 

I  Calamy,  ii.  179. 


138     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  III. 

a  little  boy  of  twelve  years  old,  son  of  Erskine  of 
Cambo,  Governor  of  the  castle,  in  the  course  of  his 
rambles  through  the  court,  came  to  the  grate  of  Car- 
stairs'  apartment.  As  he  always  loved  to  amuse 
himself  with  children,  he  went  to  the  grate  and  began 
a  conversation.  The  boy  was  delighted,  and  every 
day  came  to  the  prison-grate  —  told  him  stories, 
brought  him  provisions,  took  his  letters  to  the  post, 
was  unhappy  if  Carstairs  had  no  errand  to  send  and 
no  favor  to  ask.  When  Carstairs  was  released,  they 
parted  with  tears  on  both  sides.  One  of  the  first 
favors  that  Carstairs  asked  of  King  William  was  that 
he  would  bestow  the  office  of  Lord  Lyon  on  his 
young  friend,  to  whom  he  had  owed  so  much ;  and 
he  obtained  it,  with  the  additional  compliment  that 
it  should  be  hereditary  in  the  family.  So  in  fact  it 
continued,  till  it  was  unfortunately  forfeited  by  the 
engagement  of  Erskine's  eldest  son  in  the  rebellion 
of  1745. 

Another  story  illustrates  the  freshness  and  simplic- 
ity of  his  pastoral  character,  amongst  the  absorbing 
public  affliirs  which  occupied  him.  His  sister,  the 
wife  of  a  Fifeshire  clergyman,  had  become  a  widow. 
Carstairs  had  just  arrived  in  Edinburgh  from  London, 
to  transact  business  with  King  William's  ministers. 
She  came  over  to  Edinburgh  and  went  to  his  lodg- 
ings. They  were  crowded  with  the  nobility  and 
officers  of  state  ;  and  she  was  told  she  could  not  see 
him.  "  Just  whisper,"  said  she  to  the  servant,  "  that 
I  desire  to  know  when  it  would  be  convenient  for  him 
to  see  me."  He  returned  for  answer,  "  Immediately^' 
left  the  company,  came  to  her,  and  most  affection- 
ately embraced  her.   On  her  attempting  to  apologize, 


Lect.  iil         in  the  eighteenth  century.  139 

"  Make  yourself  easy,"  he  said  ;  "  these  gentlemen 
are  come  hither,  not  on  my  account,  but  their  own. 
They  will  wait  with  patience  till  I  return.  You  know 
I  never  pray  long."  And  so,  after  a  short  fervent 
prayer,  suited  to  her  circumstances,  he  fixed  the  time 
for  seeing  her  more  at  leisure,  and  returned  in  tears 
to  the  company. 

Towards  the  ejected  Episcopalian  clergy  he  acted 
with  the  utmost  tenderness  and  consideration.  Two 
striking  instances  are  recorded.  He  had  a  visit  from 
one  of  them,  of  the  name  of  Cadell.  Carstairs  ob- 
served with  pain  that  his  clothes  were  threadbare. 
He  eyed  him  narrowly,  and  begged  him  to  call  again, 
on  the  pretext  of  business,  in  two  days.  Meanwhile, 
he  had  ordered  a  suit  of  clothes  from  his  tailor,  to 
suit  not  his  own  but  Cadell's  make.  When  Cadell 
arrived,  he  found  Carstairs  in  a  furious  passion  at  his 
tailor  for  mistaking  his  measure,  so  that  neither  coat, 
waistcoat,  nor  breeches  would  sit  upon  him.  Then, 
turning  to  Cadell,  "  They  are  lost  if  they  don't  fit 
some  of  my  friends ;  and,  by  the  by,  I  am  not  sure 
but  they  may  answer  you."  Cadell  tried  them. 
They  were  sent  to  his  lodgings.  On  putting  them 
on,  he  found  in  one  of  the  pockets  a  ten-pound  note, 
which  he  immediately  brought  back.  "  By  no 
means,"  said  Carstairs.  "  It  cannot  belong  to  me,  for 
when  you  got  the  coat  you  acquired  a  right  to  every- 
thing in  it." 

When  the  great  Churchman  passed  away  in  full 
age,  he  was  interred  with  all  honor  in  the  venerable 
grave-yard  of  his  own  church  of  Greyfriars.  As  the 
second  founder  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  was  laid 
in  his  grave,  two  mourners  were  observed  to  turn 


140    MODERATION  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND      Lect.  IH. 

aside  and  burst  into  tears.  They  were  two  Episcopal 
Nonjurors,  whose  families  for  years  he  had  supported. 

The  grave  is  unmarked  by  any  monument.  The 
name  of  Carstairs  belonged  to  no  party,  English  or 
Scottish.  It  is  not  famous  among  the  zealots  on 
either  side  the  Border.  But  there  is  none  of  which 
the  whole  ecclesiastical  profession  ought  to  be  more 
proud.  There  is  none  which  more  completely  rebuts 
the  one-sided  accusations  of  Mr.  Buckle  ao;ainst  the 
Church  of  Scotland.  There  is  none  which  I  com- 
mend more  warmly  to  the  grateful  memory  of  the 
Scottish  people,  or  to  his  successors,  whether  as  Mod- 
erators of  the  General  Assembly  or  as  Principals  of 
the  College  of  Edinburgh. 

It  is  not  surprising  that,  after  the  troubles  of  the 
Union  were  over,  the  school  which  had  carried  the 
Church  of  Scotland  safely  through  that  crisis,  and 
which  numbered  amongst  its  followers  such  names  as 
Leighton,  Charteris,  and  Carstairs,  should  have  been 
in  the  ascendant.  The  old  leaven  of  the  Covenant- 
ing, Calvinistic  system  still  continued,  but  it  was 
more  and  more  subdued,  and  when  it  did  appear 
vented  itself  rather  in  indignant  protests  and  seces- 
sions than  in  the  actual  government  of  the  Church. 

When  Calamy  visited  Scotland  in  1703,  "that 
which  he  took  to  be  most  remarkable  was  that  not 
one  in  all  the  General  Assembly  was  for  the  Divine 
right  of  the  Presbyterian  form  of  Church  govern- 
ment, though  they  submitted  to  it."^  What  a  defec- 
tion in  the  eyes  of  the  anti-Prelatic  anti-Erastian 
suffering  remnant !  what  an  advance  in  the  eyes  of 
all  enlightened  Christians ! 

1  Calamy,  vol.  ii.  p.  153. 


Lkct.  III.  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  141 

It  was  now  that,  in  the  midst  of  those  narrow  prej- 
udices which  have  given  rise  to  Mr.  Buckle's  The 
impeachment,  there  sprung  up  within  the  ciergy^ 
Church  of  Scotland  a  body  of  clergy,  who,  for  culti- 
vation and  enlightenment,  were  second  to  none  in 
Christendom.  When  Warburton  contemptuously  said 
of  the  Scottish  clergy  that  they  were  "  half  of  them 
fanatics  and  half  infidels,"  he  was  merely  express- 
ing, with  the  insolent  contempt  with  which  high 
English  ecclesiastics  have  sometimes  spoken  of  other 
churches,  the  fact  that,  side  by  side  with  the  religious 
fervor  of  Scotland,  there  existed  a  liberality  as  con- 
spicuous.^ Even  under  the  fanaticism  of  the  Cove- 
nanters there  lay  a  deep-seated  reverence,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  the  English  Church  would  have  done  well 
to  recognize  in  its  own  Nonconforming  members  ;  and 
what  Warburton  thought  infidelity  was  the  growth 
of  that  free  and  open  inquiry  which,  more  than  any 
single  cause,  kept  Christianity  alive  and  respected  in 
England  and  Scotland  during  the  last  century,  whilst 
it  was  perishing  on  the  Continent.  I  have  spoken 
of  the  absence  of  any  eminent  work  on  specially 
theological  subjects  emanating  from  the  Scottish 
clergy.  But  this  deficiency  was  wonderfully  counter- 
balanced by  their  extraordinary  activity  in  the  gen- 
eral walks  of  knowledge. 

"I  must  confess,"  said  Dr.  Alexander  Carlyle  in 

*  The  same  sentiment  is  expressed  of  a  banker's  chief  clerk,  who  had 

more  at  length  in  Warburton's  Let-  appropriated  a  considerable  sum  of 

t«r  to  Dr.  John  Erskine.     (See  Sir  money,  was  the  books  he  was  in  the 

H.  Moncrieff  Wcllwood's    Life  of  habit  of  reading.     "  A^^lat  l)ooks  ?  " 

Erskine,  pp.   55,   56.     Home   once  asked  the  philosopher.     "  Boston's 

said  partly  in   play  to   Hume,  the  Fourfold  Slate  and  Ihimc's  Essays." 

historian,  that  the  cause  of  the  fall  Mackenzie's  Life  of  Home,  p.  22. 


142     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  IU 

1747,^  on  the  question  of  the  augmentation  of  poor 
livino-s,  "  that  I  do  not  love  to  hear  this  Church  called 
a  poor  Church,  or  the  poorest  Church  in  Christen- 
dom  I  dislike  the  language  of  whining  and 

complaint.  We  are  rich  in  the  best  goods  a  church 
can  have  —  the  learning,  the  manners,  and  the  char- 
acter of  its  members.  There  are  few  branches  of 
literature  in  which  the  ministers  of  this  Church  have 
not  excelled.  There  are  few  subjects  of  fine  writing 
in  which  they  do  not  stand  foremost  in  the  ranks  of 
authors,  which  is  a  prouder  boast  than  all  the  pomp 

of  the  hierarchy Who  have  written  the  best 

histories  ancient  and  modern  ?  It  has  been  cler- 
gymen of  the  Church  of  Scotland.  Who  has  writr 
ten  the  clearest  delineation  of  the  human  under- 
standing and  all  its  powers  ?  A  clergyman  of  this 
Church.  Who  has  written  the  best  system  of  rheto- 
ric, and  exemplified  it  by  his  own  writing  ?  A  clergy- 
man of  this  Church.  Who  wrote  a  tragedy  that  has 
been  deemed  perfect  ?  A  clergyman  of  this  Church. 
Who  was  the  most  perfect  mathematician  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived  ?  A  clergyman  of  this  Church. 
....  Let  us  not  complain  of  poverty.  It  is  a  splendid 
poverty  indeed.     It  is  paupertas  foecunda  viroruyn.'' 

This  was  a  noble  boast,  and  it  is  well  borne  out 
by  the  brilliant  galaxy  of  names  that  adorned  the 
chairs  and  pulpits  of  Edinburgh  in  the  middle  and 
the  close  of  the  last  century.  Not  till  quite  our  own 
generation  have  poetry,  philosophy,  and  history 
found  so  natural  a  home  in  the  clergy  of  England  as 
they  did  then  in  the  clergy  of  Scotland.  Robert 
Watson,  the  historian  of  Philip  II. ;  Adam  Fergusson,^ 

1  Grub,  iv.  155.  gusson,  see   Lord  Cockburn's  Me- 

2  For  a  lively  description  of  Fer-    moirs,  p.  48. 


Lect.  III!  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  143 

the  historian  of  Rome  ;  John  Home,  the  author  of  the 
tragedy  of  "  Douglas  "  ;  Hugh  Blair,  the  author  of  the 
celebrated  "  Sermons  "  and  of  the  "  Lectures  on  Rhet- 
oric " ;  Robert  Henry,  the  philosophic  author  of  the 
"  History  of  Great  Britain  "  ;  ^  and,  lastly  and  chiefly, 
William  Robertson,  the  historian  of  Scotland,  of 
America,  and  of  Charles  V.,  were  all  ministers  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland.  It  is  a  striking  tribute  to  the 
eminence  of  the  Scottish  clergy  of  that  epoch,  that 
when  Guy  Mannering  casts  his  eyes  over  the  letters 
of  introduction  which  Pleydell  had  given  him  to  the 
first  literary  characters  in  Edinburgh,  three  at  least 
were  ministers. 

Of  these  eminent  men,  Home  may  perhaps  be 
considered  to  have  passed  voluntarily  from 
his  ecclesiastical  to  his  literary  career.^  But 
of  the  others,  their  ecclesiastical  career  cannot  be 
parted  from  their  literary  eminence.  No  other  ser- 
mons in  Great  Britain  have  been  followed  by  so 
splendid  a  success  as  the  once  famous,  now  forgot- 
ten, discourses  of  Huo-h  Blair.     Neither  of 

Blair. 

Tillotson  nor  of  Jeremy  Taylor  in  past 
times,  nor  of  Arnold  or  Newman  or  even  Frederick 
Robertson  in  our  own  time,  can  it  be  recorded,  as  of 
Blair,  that  they  were  translated  into  almost  all  the 
languages  of  Europe,  and  won  for  their  author  a 
public  reward  from  the  Crown.     Nor  was  it  only  the 

1  For  an  amusing  account  of  Dr.  step  in  the  liberties  of  the  Church 
Henry's  last  days,  see  Lord  Cock-  of  Scotland.  "When  Mrs.  Siddons 
burn's  Memoirs,  p.  51.  came  to  Edinburgh  not  fifty  years 

2  The  fight  which  was  fought  afterwards,  the  General  Assembly 
over  the  tragedy  of  Douglas,  and  adjourned  its  sittings  that  its  min- 
the  comparative  victory  which  he  isters  might  attend  the  theatre, 
won,  may  be  regarded  as  a  decided  Grub,  iv.  83. 


144     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  III. 

vulgar  public  that  was  satisfied.  Even  the  despot 
of  criticism  (fastidious  judge,  zealous  High-church- 
man, fanatically  English  as  he  was),  the  mighty 
Samuel  Johnson,  who  had  a  few  years  before  de- 
clared that  no  Scottish  clergyman  had  written  any 
good  work  on  religious  subjects,  pronounced,  after 
his  perusal  of  Blair's  first  sermon,  "  I  have  read  it 
with  more  than  approbation  —  to  say  it  is  good  is 
to  say  too  little."  ^  "  If  they  are  like  the  first,  they 
are  sermones  aurei,  ac  auro  magis  aurei.  I  had  the 
honor  of  first  finding  and  first  praising  his  excel- 
lences. I  did  not  stay  to  add  my  voice  to  that  of 
the  public." ^  "A  noble  sermon,"  he  exclaimed  of 
another ;  "  1  wish  Blair  would  come  over  to  the 
Church  of  England."  "  I  love  Blair's  sermons, 
though  the  dog  is  a  Scotchman  and  a  Presbyterian, 
and  everything  he  should  not  be.     I  was  the  first 

to  praise  him  —  such  is   my  candor Let   us 

ascribe  it  to  my  candor  and  his  merit." 

What  Dr.  Robertson  did  for  history  it  is  difficult 
for   us,  with  the    advances  made  since  his 

Robertson.        .  i  i         t     •  i  i 

time,  lully  to  comprehend.  It  is  only  when 
we  look  on  what  preceded  his  works  that  we  are  as- 
tonished at  the  comprehensive  grasj^,  the  dignity,  the 
learning  with  which,  first  of  his  countrymen,  he  rose 
to  the  height  of  that  great  argument.  Yet  how 
little  do  those  who  know  of  him  as  the  familiar 
historian  of  Charles  V.  think  of  him  as  for  many 
years  the  mighty  Churchman  who  ruled  the  Church 
of  Scotland  as  no  one  had  done  since  the  death 
of  Carstairs.  "Those  two  doctors,"  said  Johnson, 
speaking  of  him  and  Blair,  "  are  wise  men  and  good 

1  Boswell,  iii.  459,  467.  2  ibid.  iv.  68. 


LECT.m.  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  145 

men."  ^  His  first  appearance  was  as  a  young  minis- 
ter in  the  General  Assembly,  where  he  at  once  led 
them  captive  by  his  eloquence.  From  that  time  for 
twenty  years  he  remained  its  complete  master.  His 
administration  was  remarkable  as  showing  how  com- 
plete independence  of  worldly  influence  may  be 
combined  with  complete  vindication  of  the  supe- 
riority of  the  law  to  ecclesiastical  caprices.  He 
insisted  on  the  same  strictness  in  the  judicial  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Assembly  as  was  observed  in  the 
other  courts  of  justice,  and  left  behind  him  a  series 
of  decisions  which  were  long  venerated  as  a  kind  of 
common  law  in  Scotland. 

He  was  also  as  thorough  a  Latitudinarian  as 
Leighton.  "  The  first  thing,"  said  Lord  Elibank, 
"  that  gave  me  a  good  opinion  of  you.  Dr.  Robertson, 
was  your  saying,  while  parties  ran  high  soon  after 
1745,  that  you  did  not  think  worse  of  a  man's  moral 
character  for  his  having  been  in  rebellion.  This 
was  venturing  to  utter  a  liberal  sentiment  while 
both  sides  had  a  detestation  of  each  other."  "Dr. 
Johnson,"  said  Dr.  Robertson  to  the  old  champion 
of  orthodoxy  when  they  met  in  London,  "  allow  me 
to  say  that  in  one  respect  I  have  the  advantage  of 
you.  When  you  were  in  Scotland  you  would  not 
come  to  hear  any  of  our  preachers ;  whereas,  when  I 
come  here  I  attend  your  public  worship  without 
scruple,  and  indeed  with  great  satisfaction."  ^ 

"  Who  is  Mr.  Hayley  ?  "  he  writes  to  Gibbon  ; 
"his  Whiggism  is  so  bigoted  and  his  Christianity 
so  fierce  that  he  almost  disgusts  one  with  two  very 
good  things."  ^ 

1  Boswell,  iii.  93.         2  itij.  jy.  196.         3  Gibbon's  Letters,  ii.  251. 
10 


146     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  HI. 

He  exhibited  the  singular  spectacle  of  the  leader 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  advocating  the  relaxation 
of  the  penal  laws  against  the  Roman  Catholics,  whilst 
a  nonjuring  divine,  who  afterwards  became  a  bishop, 
Abernethy  Drummond,  was  active  in  opposing  it.-^ 
He  foretold  the  time  when  the  whole  question  of 
subscription  to  the  existing  Confessions  would  occupy 
the  mind  of  the  Church,  and  though  he  could  not 
see  his  way  to  a  solution  of  the  problem,  he  never, 
even  in  the  plenitude  of  his  power  or  of  his  years, 
used  any  effort  to  prevent  it.  And,  as  he  stood  at 
the  head  of  the  intellectual  and  ecclesiastical  life  of 
Scotland,  so  his  individual  character  was  not  un- 
worthy of  such  eminence.  We  still  are  allowed  in 
his  declining  years  to  follow  "  the  pleasant-looking 
old  man,  with  an  eye  of  great  vivacity  and  intelli- 
gence, a  large  projecting  chin,  a  small  hearing  trum- 
pet fastened  by  a  black  ribbon  to  a  button-hole  of 
his  coat,  and  a  large  wig  powdered  and  curled "  — 
helping  the  boys  to  feed  their  rabbits  on  the  green, 
or  feasting  them  with  cherries  from  his  favorite  tree, 
or  watching  the  blossoms  of  the  fruit  which  he  was 
not  to  see.^  And  when  he  was  laid  in  his  grave  in 
Greyfriars'  Church-yard,  he  was  honored  by  the 
noblest  of  all  testimonies  —  a  eulogy  from  a  rival  in 
the  Church,  with  whom  for  long  years  he  had  con- 
tended but  never  quarreled.  It  describes  the  very 
model  of  ecclesiastical  statesmanship,  the  true  Arch- 
bishop of  the  Church  of  Scotland."  ^ 

1  Grub,  iv.  142.  (-^i/e,  !•  27),  that  on  November  5, 

2  Cunningham,  ii.  550.  1788,     he    heard    Dr.     Robertson 

3  It  is  quoted  at  length  in  Grub,  preach  on  the  occasion  of  the  cen- 
iv.  144.  It  is  recorded  by  his  cele-  tenary  of  the  English  Revolution  a 
brated   grandson,   Lord   Brougham  sermon  '*  of  singular  and   striking 


Lect.  m.  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  147 

There  is  another  less  eminent  theologian,  but 
whose  work  is  of  extraordinary  interest,  not  so  much 
from  its  intrinsic  merits  as  from  the  singular  illustra- 
tion which  it  affords  of  the  rare  liberality  of  the 
Scottish  clergy  at  this  time.  I  refer  to  the  "  Treatise 
on  Miracles,"  in  answer  to  David  Hume,  by  Campbeii 
Dr.  George  Campbell,  of  Aberdeen.  It  is  Hume. 
not  too  much  to  say  that  the  name  of  Hume  was, 
and  is  still,  one  of  the  chief  objects  of  theological 
terror  —  not  only  in  Great  Britain,  but  in  Europe. 
Hume  was  the  great  skeptic  of  a  skeptical  age.  But 
if  so  good  a  judge  as  Adam  Smith  could  say  of  him 
that  he  was  the  "  most  perfectly  wise  and  virtuous 
man  he  had  ever  known,"  it  is  worthy  the  consider- 
ation of  Christian  ministers  to  ponder  well  before 
they  treat  such  a  character  as  an  enemy  of  religion. 
Nor  did  he  put  himself  forward  as  an  unbeliever. 
"  I  am  no  Deist  —  I  do  not  so  style  myself;  neither 
do  I  desire  to  be  known  by  that  appellation."  ^     He 

interest  from  the  extreme  earnest-  other  grandson,  Mr.  William  Rob- 

ness,    the     youthful     fervor,    with  ertson,  of  Kinloch  ^loidart. 

which  it  was  delivered."     It  is  yet  i  Boswell,  i.  255.    A  like  story  is 

more  interesting  as  a  proof  of  bis  told  of  his  speech  to  Peter   Boyle, 

liberal  sentiments,  if  it  be  true  that  who  called  on  him  after  his  mother's 

it  was  filled  with   allusions  to  the  death,  and   found  him  sitting  over 

approach  of  another  Revolution,  to  "  the    fire.     Do   you   really    think, 

"  the  events  then  passing  on  the  David,  that  there  is  nothing  more 

Continent,  which  would  produce  an  left  of   her  than  in  those  ashes." 

event  which  our   neighbors   would  "  Peter,"    said    Hume,    laying    his 

ere  long  have  to  celebrate  like  to  hand   on   his   friend's   knee,   "  you 

that  which   had   then   called   them  very  much  mistake   my  opinions  if 

together ;"  his  boundless  exultation  you  ascribe  to  me  anything  of  the 

in  contemplating  "  the  deliverance  kind."     I   venture   to    repeat    tlu8 

of  so  many  millions  of  so  great  a  story  as  it  was  once  repeated  to  me 

nation  from  the  follies  of  arbitrary  from  an  authentic  source,  in  a  form 

government."    I  have   received    a  somewhat    more   lively  and    likely 

confirmation  of  the  story  fi-om   an-  than    that   in  which    it   is   Usually 


148     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  m. 

was  constant  in  his  attendance  at  the  worship  of  the 
Church/  and  he  presents  a  delicacy  of  expression  on 
rehgioiis  subjects  which,  even  if  prudential,  stood  in 
remarkable  contrast  with  many  of  the  contemporary 
scoffers  both  in  England  and  on  the  Continent.  His 
reward  was  that  the  graces  of  his  character  were 
acknowledged  by  the  clergy  even  more  readily  than 
by  the  laity.  The  two  Primates  of  England  and  Ire- 
land were  alone  amongst  their  countrymen  in  en- 
couraging him  to  prosecute  his  history.  In  his  own 
country  he  lived  on  the  most  intimate  terms  with  the 
leading  clergy  of  Edinburgh.  Blair  openly  defended 
him  from  attacks  which  he  believed  to  be  unjust. 
The  General  Assembly  ^  steadily  refused,  though 
hard  pressed,  to  censure  his  writings.  The  works  of 
his  friend  Lord  Kairaes,  although  an  elder,  were  not 
even  noticed  by  that  body.  The  crowning  example 
of  Christian  courtesy  was  shown  by  Dr.  Campbell. 
Before  publishing  his  treatise  he  submitted  it  to 
Hume's  perusal,  and  at  once  accepted  his  great  ad- 
versary's criticisms  on  passages  in  which  the  mean- 
ing of  the  controverted  word  had  been  misunder- 
stood, or  which  needed  to  be  softened.  Hume 
himself  gracefully  acknowledged  the  urbanity  of  this 
truly  Christian  controversialist.^  The  whole  transac- 
tion is  a  green  oasis  in  the  history  of  polemics,  and 
was  of  itself  sufficient  to  redeem  the  Scottish  clergy 
from  the  indiscriminating  charges  which,  with  an 
ignorance  surprising  in  such  a  man,  Mr.  Buckle 
brought  against  them. 

given  from  Dr.  Carlyle.      See  Bur-        3  Ibid.  ii.  430. 
ton's  Life  of  Hume,  i.  294.)  3  Cunningham,  ii.  507,  515. 

1  Burton's  Hume,  ii.  453. 


Lect.   III.  IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  149 

It  is  in  the  Established  Church  that  these  eminent 
men  found  their  home.  The  narrower  spirits  of  the 
age  took  refuge  in  one  secession  after  another  in  pur- 
suance of  the  principles  indicated  in  my  previous 
lecture.  Yet  there  are  two  striking  exceptions  which 
show  how  the  generous  principles  nurtured  within 
the  Establishment  extended  to  some  of  the  com- 
munities which  broke  off  from  it. 

One  such  is  the  separation  commonly  called  the 
Relief.  Gillespie  of  Carnock  stands  almost  alone 
amono;st  the  founders  of  Scottish  schisms  in  havinsc 
been  driven  out  of  the  Church  rather  than  volunta- 
rily retirino;  from  it.    The  word  " Relief"  ex- 

1       11       1  1  11  11  .    ^         The  Relief. 

pressed  all  that  he  needed ;  and  that  "  Ke- 
lief,"  according  to  the  somewhat  stern  rule  of  exter- 
nal discipline  established  by  Dr.  Robertson,  was  not 
granted  to  him.  With  the  close  atmosphere  of  the 
Secession  he  had  no  sympathy.  When  con- 
demned by  the  Assembly  he  replied  in  words 
which  are  a  model  of  dignified  and  temperate  sub- 
mission :  "Moderator,  I  desire  to  receive  this  sen- 
tence of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  pronounced  against  me  with  real  concern 
and  awful  impressions  of  the  divine  conduct  in  it; 
but  to  me  I  rejoice  that  it  is  given  not  only  to  re- 
joice in  the  name  of  Christ  but  also  to  suffer  for  it." 
He  heaped  no  calumnies  on  the  Church  after  his  dep- 
osition. In  his  first  sermon  preached  in  the  open 
fields  he  expressed  his  hope  that  no  public  di.sputes 
would  ever  be  the  burden  of  his  preaching,  but  Jesus 
Christ  and  Him  crucified.  "  He  desired  at  all  seasons 
to  have  in  his  eye  that  the  wrath  of  man  worketh  not 
the  righteousness  of  God,  and  then  went  on  to  speak  of 


150     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  HI. 

the  great  truths  of  the  Gospel  without  one  reflection 
on  what  had  passed." 

He  still  loved  the  Church  from  which  he  had 
parted,  and  rather  than  seek  assistance  elsewhere, 
resolved  to  take  his  whole  worli  upon  himself  The 
coldness  of  the  Church  towards  him  was  a  hard  re- 
turn )  yet  to  the  end  he  remained  faithful  to  his  first 
love,  and  on  his  death-bed  recommended  his  congre- 
gation to  "  reseek  connnunion  with  it."  The  "  Re- 
lief" has  now  been  absorbed  into  the  United  Pres- 
byterians. May  we  not  trace  in  the  gentler  and 
freer  spirit  which  at  times  appears  in  that  body  the 
traces  of  the  first  originator  of  one  of  its  compo- 
nent parts  —  the  latitudinarian,  moderate,  Christian- 
minded  Gillespie  ? 

There  was  yet  one  other  Scottish  sect  of  this 
period  which  in  a  diflerent  form  exhibited  something 
of  the  same  enlarged  temperament.  Alone  of  all  the 
secessions  that  of  John  Glasse  was  not  based 
upon  the  Covenant  but  rather  on  a  protest 
agrainst  it.  Alone  of  all  Scottish  seceders  he  founded 
his  theology  not  on  the  likeness  of  Christianity  to 
Judaism  but  on  its  unlikeness.  Extravagant  as  some 
of  his  tenets  were,  yet  his  conception  of  the  Church 
as  a  purely  spiritual  community  had  in  it  a  germ 
of  eternal  truth  not  to  be  found  in  the  hierarch- 
ical pretensions  of  the  other  seceders ;  and  the  res- 
toration of  ancient  Christian  usages,  fantastic  as  they 
were,  had  at  least  the  merit  of  consistency.  Alone 
in  western  Christendom  this  little  sect  has  retained 
the  undoubtedly  primitive  and  once  Catholic  usages 
of  weekly  communions,  of  love  feasts,  of  the  kiss 
of  charity,  of  washing  one  another's  feet,  of  abstain- 


Lect.  m.  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  151 

ing  from  things  strangled,  and  from  blood.  It  is 
much  to  the  honor  of  the  General  Assembly  that 
they  long  bore  with  the  eccentricities  of  this  child- 
like reformer ;  and  in  his  case  they  adopted  a  prece- 
dent which,  though  harsh  in  its  application,  contained 
a  principle  full  of  forethought  and  kindly  feeling. 
Whilst  withholding  from  him  the  office  of  minister 
of  the  Established  Church,  they  distinctly  recognized 
him  as  a  minister  of  the  Gospel.^  In  this  unattached 
and  inoffensive  attitude  he  continued  to  act.  His 
son-in-law,  Sandeman,  continued  his  teach- 
ing, and  the  simple  unostentatious  piety  of 
this  singular  Scottish  communion  has  been  rewarded 
in  our  days  by  enrolling  and  retaining  amongst  its 
members  the  most  illustrious  and  the  most  religious 
of  modern  philosophers,  Michael  Faraday. 

There  was  no  doubt  a  repressive  tendency,  a  nat- 
ural revulsion  from  the  extravagance  of  the  intoier- 
former  generation,  such  as  the  stern  rule  of  Moderates. 
Robertson  and  the  shrewd  worldly  sense  of  men  like 
Alexander  Carlyle  unduly  fostered.  One  example 
of  the  intolerance  which  is  at  times  found  in  the  most 
tolerant  of  schools  appears  in  the  earlier  history  of 
the  Scottish  Latitudinarians  ;  and  if  the  popular  view 
of  it  may  be  taken  as  correct,  is  too  striking  to  be 
passed  over  by  any  impartial  observer. 

In  the  venerable  cemetery  of  Greyfriars'  Church, 
which  contains  the  dust  of  all  the  contending  sir  Georg« 
factions  of  Scottish  history  —  where  the  mon-  zi^  ^° 
ument  of  the  Covenanters  recounts  their  praises  al- 
most within  sight  of  the  Grassmarket  where  they 
died ;   where  rest  the  noblest   leaders   both   of  the 

1  Cunningham,  ii.  455. 


152    MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lkct.  HI. 

moderate  and  of  the  stricter  party  —  there  rises 
another  stately  monument,  at  once  the  glory  and  the 
shame  of  Scottish  Liberals.  It  is  the  ponderous  tomb, 
bolted  and  barred,  of  Sir  George  Mackenzie,  the  Lord 
Advocate  under  James  IL^  He  it  is  of  whom  Davie 
Deans  has  said  that  "  he  will  be  kenned  by  the  name 
of  Bloody  Mackenzie  so  long  as  there  's  a  Scot's 
tongue  to  speak  the  word."  He  it  is  whom  Wander- 
ing Willie  saw  in  that  terrible  scene  —  the  master- 
piece of  Scott's  genius  —  of  the  revels  of  the  old  per- 
secutors in  the  halls  of  Hell.  "  There  was  the  Bloody 
Advocate  Mackenzie,  who  for  his  worldly  wit  and 
wisdom  had  been  to  the  rest  as  a  god."  At  the  mas- 
sive wooden  doors  of  that  huge  mausoleum  in  the 
Greyfriars'  Church-yard,  even  to  this  day  we  are 
told  that  the  boys  of  the  old  town  of  Edinburgh  ven- 
ture as  a  feat  of  boyish  audacity  in  the  gloaming  to 
shout  through  the  key-hole,  and  then  fly  for  their 
lives  :  — 

"  Lift  the  sneck  and  draw  the  har, 
Bloody  Mackenzie  come  out  if  ye  dare." 

The  strange  and  instructive  aspect  of  this  sinister 
and  blood-stained  memory  is  that  it  belongs  to  one 
who  was  deemed,  even  by  his  political  adversaries, 
"  the  brightest  Scotsman  of  his  time,"  who  was  a  bold 
advocate  of  the  rights  of  the  subject,  a  reformer  of 
some  of  the  worst  abuses  of  Scottish  law,  and  a  phil- 
osophic theologian  of  the  largest  type.  "  It  is  in  re- 
ligion as  in  heraldry,"  he  said ;  "  the  simpler  the  bear- 
ing is,  it  is  so  much  the  purer  and  the  ancienter." 

I  I    derive    my    impressions    of     Contemporary    Review    of    Auo^ust, 
George  Mackenzie  from  the  hostile    1871,  by  A.  Taylor  Innes. 
but  candid  and    able  essay  in  the 


Lect.  in.  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  153 

"  I  am  none  of  those  who  acknowledge  no  temples 
but  in  their  own  heads.  To  chalk  out  the  bordering 
lines  of  the  Church  militant  is  beyond  the  geography 
of  my  religion."  He  was  perfectly  indifferent  to  the 
claims  of  Episcopacy  and  Presbytery.  The  laws  of 
his  country  were  for  him  a  sufficient  warrant  for  the 
forms  of  religion.  Yet  this  great  lawyer,  so  just,  so 
enlightened  beyond  his  age,  was  by  stress  of  circum- 
stance, and  partly  by  the  excess  of  his  philosophic 
indifference,  induced  to  frame  and  administer  those 
dreadful  laws  by  which  the  Scottish  Covenanters 
were  tortured,  exiled,  and  slaughtered.  He  remains 
a  warning  to  all  liberal  statesmen  and  divines  that 
liberality  of  theory  does  not  always  carry  with  it  lib- 
erality of  action. 

When  I  stand  in  that  historic  cemetery  before  the 
tomb  of  the  ancient  Covenanters  my  heart  glows  with 
respect  for  honorable  though  mistaken  adversaries. 
"When  I  seek  for  the  grave  of  Carstairs,  or  gaze  on 
the  tomb  of  Robertson,  I  delight  in  the  thought  that 
spirits  so  generous  and  so  noble  as  theirs  were  fellow- 
workers  and  forerunners  in  the  mission  which  I  and 
those  with  whom  I  labor  delight  to  honor.  But  when 
I  turn  to  the  monument  of  the  Bloody  Mackenzie,  it 
is  with  the  bitter  thought  that  I  see  there  the  memo- 
rial of  a  valued  friend,  who  has  betrayed  and  dis- 
graced a  noble  caiise,  and  given  occasion,  it  may  be, 
to  the  enemies  of  freedom,  charity,  and  truth  to  blas- 
pheme those  holy  names. 

The  deviations  from  the  true  moderation  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  which  marked  the  history  of  Sir 
George  Mackenzie,  no  doubt  appeared  from   contro- 
time    to    time    in    the    later   periods  which  spIcUn^' 


/ 


154    MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  HI. 

we  have  been  considering.  And  it  was  assisted  by 
the  continued  inheritance  of  the  old  Covenanting 
leaven,  without  which  the  Church  would  not  have 
been  the  Church  of  Scotland,  and  which  maintained 
its  hold  on  the  General  Assembly  through  what  was 
Aiken-  Called  thc  "  popular  party."  The  cruel  exe- 
^^^^''  cution  of  Thomas  Aikenhead,  and  the  decree 
of  the  General  Assembly  against  what  were  absurdly 
called  the  "  atheistical  opinions  "  of  "  the  Deists"  black- 
ens the  same  page  of  Scottish  history  that  is  bright- 
ened by  "  the  Act  for  the  settling  of  schools."  ^  It 
was  this  same  persecuting  spirit  which,  at  a  later 
period,  as  we  have  seen,  attempted,  but  in  vain,  to 
condemn  Home,  and  Kaimes,  and  Hume ;  which  en- 
deavored to  cast  out  the  less  known  but  still  highly- 
interesting  names  of  Simson  and  Leechman. 

Simson; 

They  were  all  accused  of  heresy,  and  they 
were  all  treated  leniently,  if  not  acquitted,  by  the 
Assembly.  Simson's  case  was  the  most  complicated, 
and  involved  the  longest  controversy.  But  the  two 
Wisharts  and  Leechman  are  again  examples,  like 
Leighton  and  Charteris,  of  the  union  of  the  purest 
and  most  elevated  religion  with  free  and  large  spec- 
ulation. Wishart,  who  was  an  ardent  ad- 
mirer of  the  most  saintly  of  English  Latitudi- 
narians,^  Whichcote,  was  accused  of  having  diminished 
the  "due  weight  and  influence  of  arguments  taken 
from  the  awe  of  future  rewards  and  punishments ; " 
also  of  "  wishing  to  remove  confessions,  and  freeing 
persons  from   subscribing    thereto,"  and  for  "  licen- 

1  Macaulay,    iv.   584.     Cunning-    teresting  essay  on  Benjamin  "Wliich- 
ham,  ii.  313.  cote,  in  the  Contemporary  Review 

2  See     Principal    Tulloch's     in-    of  November,  1871. 


Lect.  m.  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  155 

tiously  extending  the  liberty  of  Christian  subjects." 
It  is  of  his  brother  George  that  Henry  Mackenzie  has 
said:  "His  figure  is  before  me  at  this  moment.  It 
is  possible  some  who  hear  me  may  remember  him. 
Without  that  advantage,  I  can  faintly  recall  his  saint- 
ed countenance  —  that  physiognomy  so  truly  expres- 
sive of  Christian  meekness,  yet  in  the  pulpit  often 
lighted  up  with  the  warmest  devotional  feeling.  In 
the  midst  of  his  family  it  beamed  with  so  much  patri- 
archal affection  and  benignity,  so  much  of  native 
politeness  graced  with  those  manners  which  improve 
its  form  without  wasting  its  substance,  that  I  think  a 
painter  of  the  apostolic  school  could  have  found  no 
more  perfect  model."  Wishart  was  acquitted,  both 
by  the  Synod  and  General  Assembly,  in  1745.^ 

Leechman  was  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Glasgow. 
He  was  in  appearance  like  an  ascetic  monk  ; 
a  man  distinguished  alike  for  his  primitive 
and  apostolic  manners,  his  love  of  literature,  and  his 
liberal  opinions.  The  ground  of  attack  against  him 
was  a  philosophic  sermon  on  prayer.  The  Assembly 
acquitted  him  in  words  as  honorable  to  itself  as  to 
him :  "  We  have  seen,  on  the  one  hand,  the  beauty 
of  Christian  charity,  and  the  condescension  to  remove 
offense ;  on  the  other,  the  readiness  to  make  all  satis- 
faction." ^ 

It  is  perhaps  another  form  of  the  almost  inevitable 
onesidedness  of  each  of  the  great  move-  jj,,^g_ 
ments  of  the  human  mind  that,  during  the  ^^'^'■'"n"^- 
ascendency  of  the  Moderates,  the  Church  of  Scotland 
partook  of  the  lukewarmness  of  zeal  in  behalf  of 
great  religious  and  philanthropic  objects  which  per- 

1  Cunningham,  ii.  373-400,  4GD.  8  Ibid.  ii.  469. 


156    MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lbct.  HI. 

vaded  all  Christendom  during  the  eighteenth  century. 
Yet,  in  justice  both  to  Scotland  and  to  that  now  un- 
duly depreciated  age,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
then,  for  the  first  time,  were  set  on  foot  endeavors 
seriously  to  evangelize  and  enlighten  the  outlying 
districts  of  the  Highlands,  which,  during  the  fierce 
contentions  for  and  against  the  Covenant,  had  been 
left  untouched,  in  the  depths  of  ignorance  and  super- 
stition. Even  the  system  of  parochial  education,  the 
peculiar  glory  of  the  Scottish  Church  and  nation, 
which  had  been  foreshadowed  in  the  wise  schemes 
of  Knox,  was  first  put  in  force  after  the  settlement 
of  the  Revolution.^ 

And  if  we  ask  for  the  more  stirring  signs  of  re- 
Reception     ligious  revival,  it  can   hardly  be  said  that 

of  W  liitc- 

tieid:  Scotlaud,  duriug  the  last  century,  fell  behind 

England,  nor  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland 
behind  the  seceding  sects.  It  is  true  that  when 
Wesley  crossed  the  Border  he  found  a  want  of  that 
cordial  response  which  he  had  found  in  many  parts 
of  his  own  country.  He  was  too  English  —  must  I 
say,  too  Arminian,  too  Oxonian  —  to  rouse  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  North.  But  even  he,  when  in  1736, 
in  the  far  distant  Darien,  he  lighted  on  the  Scottish 
settlement,  after  bitter  complaints  of  hearing  an  ex- 
temporary prayer,  and  of  there  being  public  service 
only  once  a  week,  adds,  "  Yet  it  must  be  owned  that 
in  all  instances  of  personal  or  social  duty  this  people 
utterly  shames  our  countrymen.  In  sobriety,  indus- 
try, frugality,  patience,  in  sincerity  and  openness  of 
behavior,  in  justice  and  mercy  of  all  kinds,  being  not 
content  with  exemplary  kindness  and  friendliness  to 

1  Cunningham,  ii.  314. 


Lect.  m.  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  157 

one  another,  but  extending  it  to  the  utmost  of  their 
ability  to  every  stranger  that  comes  within  their 
gates."  ^ 

And  when  Whitefield  came  to  Scotland  it  was  not, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  the  seceding  Churches,  ^^  ^^^^ 
but  in  the  Established  Church,  that  he  found  ®^'^''^'"' 
his  chief  support,  —  if  not  support,  at  least  tolera- 
tion.^ It  was  from  the  Church  of  the  Moderates,  not 
from  the  Church  of  the  Covenant,  nor  that  of  the 
Episcopalians,  that  three  thousand  communicants 
went  forth  to  receive  the  Holy  Eucharist  from  what 
the  Seceders  called  the  "  foul  prelatic  hands  "  of  the 
English  clergyman.^  In  the  West,  his  chief  supporter 
was  no  wild  fanatic,  but  a  learned,  unostentatious 
scholar,  a  slow,  cautious,  and  prudent  parish  minister, 
M'Culloch  of  Cambuslang.  In  the  East,  the  support 
which  had  been  denied  him  by  Ebenezer  BytheEs- 
Erskine  was  gladly  given  by  the  leader  of  church. 
the  popular  party  —  Webster  *  —  who,  whatever  may 
have  been  his  short-comings,  and  however  much  he 
may  have  been  in  some  respects  opposed  to  the 
leaders  of  the  Moderate  school,  has  not  only  the  glory 
of  having  forwarded  the  mission  of  the  English  en- 

1  Wesley's  MS.  Journal,  commu-  the  words  here  cited,  but  his  whole 
nicated  by  the  kindness  of  Dr.  Rigg.  intercourse  with   Dr.    Carlyle   and 

2  \Miitefield  called  himself  "  a  the  whole  attitude  towards  the  Es- 
moderate  Catholic  clergyman  of  the  tablished  Church  make  him  a  lib- 
Church  of  England."  Gledstone's  eral,  a  humanizing  influence,  such 
Whitefield,  p.  496.  as  would  have  been  vainly  sought 

3  Glcdstone,  p.  292.  in  the    ascendency   either    of   the 

4  Webster  well  illustrates  the  Covenanters,  or  even  of  that  party 
general  influence  of  the  Moderates,  to  which  in  a  political  and  tempo- 
No  doubt  he  was  in  the  purely  tech-  rary  sense  Webster  belonged.  See 
nical  sense  of  the  word  what  would  for  his  position  especially  Dr.  Som- 
be  called  "  the  opposition  "  to  the  erville's  il/emoirs,  pp.  102-107. 
school  of  Robertson.     But  not  only 


158    MODERATION  OP  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  III. 

thusiast,  but  of  having  summed  up  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding with  those  golden  words,  which  no  mere 
enthusiast  could  have  conceived  or  penned :  "  I  shall 
conclude  with  observing  that  the  grave  opposition 
made  to  this  Divine  work  by  several  good  men 
through  misinformation  or  mistaken  zeal,  and  the 
slippery  precipice  on  which  they  now  stand,  may 
teach  us  that  it  is  indeed  a  dangerous  thing  to  cen- 
sure without  inquiry.  It  may  serve  likewise  as  a 
solemn  warning  against  a  party  spirit  which  so  far 
blinds  the  eyes.  It  also  gives  a  noble  opportunity 
for  the  exercise  of  our  Christian  sympathy  towards 
these  our  errino*  brethren  ....  and  should  make  us 
Ion  or  for  a  removal  to  the  land  of  vision  above  .... 
where  are  no  wranglings,  no  strivings  about  matters 
of  faith,  and  where  the  whole  scheme  of  present 
worship  being  removed  we  shall  no  more  see  darkly 
as  through  a  glass,  but  face  to  face,  where  perfect 
light  will  lay  a  foundation  for  perfect  harmony  and 
love.  It  is  with  peculiar  pleasure  that  I  often  think 
how  my  good  friend  Ebenezer  shall  then  enter  into 
the  everlasting  mansions  with  many  glorified  saints, 
whom  the  Associate  Presbytery  have  now  given  over 
as  the  property  of  Satan.  May  they  soon  see  their 
mistake;  and  may  we  yet  altogether  be  happily 
united  in  the  bonds  of  peace  and  truth."  This  is 
Moderation,  if  ever  there  was  such  on  earth.  This 
was  in  the  very  depth  of  the  eighteenth  century,  at 
the  very  moment  when  the  Moderate  party  were 
beginning  to  establish  their  sway.  When  we  are 
taught  to  think  of  the  Edinburgh  of  that  age  as  cold 
and  dead,  let  us  remember  that  it  was  of  it  that 
Whitefield,  when   he  left   it,   exclaimed,   "0   Edin- 


Lect.  ni.  IN   THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  159 

burgh,  Edinburgh,  I  think  I  shall  never  forget 
thee ! "  And  that  same  Edinburgh  never  forg-ot 
him.  When,  years  afterwards,  he  came  to  the  Scot- 
tish capital  again,  he  was  in  danger  of  being  hugged 
to  death  by  the  enthusiastic  reception  of  its  citizens, 
and  he  sat,  it  is  said,  amongst  them,  "  like  a  king 
of  men  on  his  throne."  When,  yet  later,  two  months 
after  his  death,  Foote  endeavored  to  bring  out  a  play 
in  ridicule  of  his  eccentricities,  the  town  indignantly 
rose,  and  the  pulpits  of  the  Established  Church  rang 
with  earnest  rebukes.^ 

The  balance  which  was  held  thus  evenly  in  the 
last  century,  at  the  beginning  of  this  was  disturbed ; 
and  two  memorable  convulsions  undermined  the 
hitherto  strong  position  of  the  Moderate  party  in 
the  Church  of  Scotland.  One  was  the  contest  for 
the  chair  of  mathematical  professor  be-  Macknight 
tween  Macknight  and  Leslie.  On  that  occa-  ^''^^  Leslie. 
sion  the  Moderate  clergy,  the  descendants  of  Robert- 
son and  Blair,  were  found,  from  a  fatal  mixture  of 
party  and  professional  spirit,  ranged  on  the  side  of 
ignorance  and  bigotry ;  and  the  Popular  clergy,  the 
descendants  of  Rutherford  and  Thomas  Boston,  from 
a  combination  of  political  strategy  with  hereditary 
animosity  against  their  ancient  enemies,  were  found 
as  champions  of  science  and  freedom. 

The  other  was  the  occasion  when,  from  the  union 
of  these  two  discordant  forces,  the  Church  Irving  and 
of  Scotland  drove  from  its  ranks  the  bright-  Campbeii. 
est  genius  and  the  most  philosophical  and  most 
spiritual  divine  that  had  for  many  years  adorned  its 
clergy  —  Edward  Irving  and  John  M'Leod  Campbell. 

1  Gledstone's  Whitefield,  pp.  477,  499. 


160     MODERATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND     Lect.  IH. 

Into  these  and  the  yet  more  strange  controversies 
that  followed  I  decline  to  enter.  The  fires  of  the 
Disruption  still  glow  too  warmly,  even  in  its  ashes, 
to  allow  a  stranger  to  walk  boldly  among  them. 
But  they  may  be  watched  from  a  distance,  amidst 
the  lights  and  shadows  thrown  upon  them  from  the 
past,  and  from  the  hopes  of  a  brighter  future,  which 
I  reserve  for  my  next  lecture. 


NOTE. 

In  treating  the  somewhat  complex  aspect  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land during  the  last  century,  it  may  be  well  to  repeat  briefly  the 
position  already  indicated.  It  was  not  my  intention  to  enter  into 
the  detailed  questions  at  issue  between  the  "  Moderate "  and  the 
"  Popular "  party ;  but  to  describe  the  general  influence  of  the 
spirit  of  moderation  over  the  whole  Church.  The  name  of  "  Mod- 
erate," like  all  other  party  names,  has  been  used  as  a  term  of 
reproach  equally  for  the  best  and  the  worst  of  men;  and  it  was 
therefore  my  object,  as  far  as  possible,  to  abstain  from  employing  it 
in  this  technical  and  at  the  same  time  indiscriminate  sense.  It  is 
clear  that,  in  point  of  fact,  the  Church  of  Scotland  at  large  was  as 
proud  of  the  leaders  of  its  public  opinion  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
as  the  seceding  sections  of  the  Church  are  now  anxious  to  dispar- 
age them.  It  is  suflicient  to  contrast  the  contemptuous  expressions 
used  by  modern  partisans,  with  the  cordial  and  generous  tribute  of 
one  whose  very  name  is  a  guarantee  for  strictness  of  life  and 
faith.  "  The  names  of  such  men  as  Cuming  and  Wishart  and 
Walker  and  Dick  and  Robertson  and  Blair,  are  embalmed,  with 
the  name  of  Erskine,  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  have  learned,  in  any 
manner,  how  to  value  whatever  has  been  most  respectable  in  our 
Zion.  God  grant  that,  while  their  memory  is  yet  fresh  in  the 
mind,  the  men  who  fill  their  places  in  the  world  may  catch  a  por- 
tion of  their  spirit !  God  grant  that  while  they,  like  Elijah  of  old, 
may  yet  seem  to  be  dropping  their  mantle  on  the  earth,  their  spirit 
also,  like  that  of  the  prophet,  may  yet  remain  to  bless  the  children 


Lect.  m.  IN  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY.  161 

of  men."  ^  This  was  the  feeling  towards  the  leading  "  Moderates  " 
expressed  by  the  venerable  biographer  of  the  leader  of  the  popular 
party  of  that  age.  It  is  the  very  school,  whose  beneficent  influ- 
ence is  portrayed  in  these  glowing  terms,  which  has  in  recent 
declarations  been  described  as  the  "  antagonist  of  the  religious  life 
of  the  Scottish  Church,"  and  of  which  it  has  been  said  that  "  their 
history  was  in  one  word,  —  '  Ruin.'  " 

1  Sir  Henry  Moncrieflf  "Wellwood's  Life  o/Erskine,  p.  481. 
11 


LECTURE  IV. 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  CHURCH  OP 
SCOTLAND. 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  INSTITUTE, 
JANUARY   12,    1872. 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 

I  HAVE  almost  reached  the  farthest  limits  to  which 
I  shall  have  to  tax  your  patience  and  your  forbear- 
ance. But  I  would  still  venture  to  say  a  few  words 
on  the  future  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  divined  from  the  moral  and  religious  phases 
of  its  former  history  and  of  its  present  condition. 

The  question  which  I  would  propound  is,  What 
germs  can  we  find  of  unity  and  prosperity  in  ^nion  of 
the  discordant  elements  of  which  we  have  of^sSu*'*' 
been  speaking?  It  will  not  be  supposed  ^^'^^' 
that  I  come  here  to  suggest  any  details  of  organic 
union,  such  as  have  been  sometimes  proposed  be- 
tween the  Free  Church  and  the  United  Presbyte- 
rians, or  between  the  Episcopal  and  the  Presbyterian 
Churches  generally.  In  such  projects  of  internal  ad- 
ministration it  becomes  not  a  stranger  to  intermed- 
dle, and  even  if  it  did,  the  study  of  the  ecclesiastical 
history  of  Scotland,  as  of  other  countries,  would  make 
me  hesitate  in  proposing  schemes  of  union  which  are 
often  rather  military  defenses  against  a  common  foe 
than  harmonious  aspirations  after  a  common  good  ; 
and  which  often  cannot  be  effected  without  effacing 
peculiarities  which  are  not  less  valuable  than  unity 
itself  When  I  look  on  the  three  estranged  sections 
of  Scottish  religious  life,  I  fully  sympathize  with  that 


166  UNION   OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND    Lect.  IV. 

touching  application  of  Coleridge's  beautiful  lines, 
which  was  made  some  years  ago  by  a  distinguished 
Moderator  of  the  General  Assembly :  ^  — 

"  Alas  !  they  had  been  friends  in  youth ; 
But  whispering  tongues  can  poison  truth ; 
Each  spake  words  of  high  disdain 

And  insult  to  his  heart's  best  brother  : 
They  parted  —  ne'er  to  meet  again  ! 

But  never  either  found  another 
To  free  the  hollow  heart  from  paining ; 
They  stood  aloof,  the  scars  remaining, 
Like  cliffs  which  had  been  rent  asunder  : 

A  dreary  sea  now  flows  between ; 
But  neither  heat,  nor  frost,  nor  thunder, 

Shall  wholly  do  away,  I  ween, 

The  marks  of  that  which  once  hath  been." 

Nevertheless,  the  increasing  elements  of  union, 
which  are  visible  in  other  Churches,  have  not  failed 
in  Scotland. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  when  the  lamented 
Prevost  Paradol  addressed  the  audience  of  Edinburgh 
a  few  years  ago,  he  said,  in  answer  to  the  question 
of  what  Church  he  was  an  adherent :  "  I  belong  to 
that  Church  which  has  no  name,  but  of  which  the 
members  recognize  each  other  wherever  they  meet."  ^ 
He  meant,  no  doubt,  that  fellowship  of  sentiment 
which  creates  a  unity  amongst  all  educated  men 
throughout  Christendom.  It  is  the  intellectual  and 
philosophical  expression  of  a  very  old  theological 
truth,  —  that  which  constitutes  the  first  clause  of  the 
The  Spirit-  twcuty-fifth  article  of  the  Confession  of  Faith  : 
of  Scot-''*'  "  The  Catholic  or  Universal  Church,  which  is 
invisible,  consists   of  the  whole   number   of 


land. 


1  Address  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Nor-        2  Lectures    delivered   at    Edin- 
man  M'Leod,  as  Moderator  of  the    burgh  in  1869. 
General  Assembly  in  1869. 


Lect.  IV.  IN  ITS   SPIRITUAL  ASPECT.  167 

the  elect  which  have  been,  are,  or  shall  be,  gath- 
ered into  one,  under  Christ,  the  Head  thereof,  and  is 
the  spouse,  the  body,  the  fullness  of  Him  that  filleth 
all  in  all."  These  elect  spirits,  and  the  injfluences 
which  they  embody,  are  indeed  confined  to  no  one 
Church  or  country,  but  they  are  the  links  which  draw 
all  Churches  and  countries  together.  And  it  is  one 
of  the  advantages  of  our  time,  as  Prevost  Paradol 
observed,  that  education  of  itself  forms  an  intellectual 
unity  amongst  cultivated  men,  which,  though  un- 
known in  the  earlier  ages  of  Christian  Europe,  is  now 
beginning  to  take  its  place  beside  the  moral  unity 
already  perceived  to  exist  amongst  the  good  men  of 
every  time  —  a  communion  of  sages  not  indeed  coex- 
tensive with,  but  analogous  to,  the  communion  of 
saints. 

But  what  is  true  of  the  universal  Church  and  of 
the  general  community  of  the  civilized  world,  is  also 
in  a^  more  restricted  sense  true  of  the  religious  com- 
munions of  particular  countries,  and  especially  of 
Scotland. 

The  true  spiritual  Church  of  Scotland  includes 
them  all  —  with  the  characteristics  common  to  Scots- 
men, but  without  the  dividing  characteristics  of  the 
several  communions.  And  this  union  is,  as  regards 
the  Presbyterians  of  Scotland,  the  more  easy,  because 
of  that  singular  identity  of  outward  doctrine  and  rit- 
ual of  which  I  have  before  spoken  :  "  It  is  a  fine  say- 
ing of  a  German  Professor  in  his  history  of  the  Scot- 
tish Church,"  said  one  of  the  noblest  of  modern 
Scottish  Free  Churchmen,^  " '  In  Scotland  there  are 
no  sects,  only  parties.'     He   meant   that  we  should 

1  Dr.  Duncan,  in  Knight's  Peripatetica,  p.  36. 


168         UNION  OF  THE   CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND.         Lect.  IV. 

not  dignify  our  differences  by  the  name  of  sects  ;  we 
are  only  parties  in  one  great  sect  —  the  species  of  a 
genus."  To  all  who  have  been  subject  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  religion  of  Scotland  there  remains  a  pe- 
culiar flavor  derived  from  no  other  source  ;  and  many 
might  be  named  of  whom  the  description  of  the 
Wanderer  in  Wordsworth's  "  Excursion "  is  literally 
true :  — 

"  The  Scottish  Church,  both  on  himself  and  those 
With  whom  from  childhood  he  grew  up,  had  held 
The  strong  hand  of  her  purity  ;  and  still 
Had  watched  him  with  an  unrelenting  eye. 
This  he  remembered  in  his  riper  age 
With  gratitude,  and  reverential  thoughts. 
But  by  the  native  vigor  of  his  mind, 
By  loneliness,  and  goodness,  and  kind  works, 
Whate'er,  in  docile  childhood  or  in  youth, 
He  had  imbibed  of  fear  or  darker  thought 
Was  melted  all  away :  so  true  was  this, 
That  sometimes  his  religion  seemed  to  me 
Self-taught,  as  of  a  dreamer  in  the  woods ; 
Who  to  the  model  of  his  own  pure  heart 
Shaped  his  belief  as  grace  divine  inspired. 
Or  human  reason  dictated  with  awe." 

I  propose  to  follow  out  the  thought  of  this  larger 
and  more  original  growth  of  religion  by  taking  ex- 
amples from  the  various  communions  which  shall 
exhibit  the  elements  of  this  invisible  or  spiritual 
Church  of  Scotland,  not  in  their  disunion,  but  in  their 
union ;  and  I  will  conclude  by  showing  what  is  the 
bearing  of  this  union  on  the  fortunes  of  the  central 
institution  of  the  National  Church  itself. 

Let  me  speak  first  of  the  present  sentiment  pre- 
vailing towards  the  more  ancient  forms  of  Christen- 
Antiqua-  dom.  It  cauuot  be  doubted  that  they  are 
vivai.         now  regarded   from   quite  a  different  point 


Lect.  IV.  ITS  ANTIQUARIAN  REVIVAL.  169 

of  view  to  that  in  which  they  were  regarded  in  Scot- 
land in  the  sixteenth,  the  seventeenth,  or  even  the 
eighteenth  century.  Scotland  has  been  visited  by 
that  revival  of  antiquarian  and  mediaeval  lore  which 
was,  in  the  times  of  which  we  have  spoken,  almost 
equally  distasteful  to  the  spirit  of  the  Covenanters 
and  the  spirit  of  the  Moderates.  Nay,  it  may  almost 
be  said  that  in  that  reaction  she  has  herself  borne  a 
principal  part.  It  was  Walter  Scott,  as  Carlyle  has 
well  described,  who  gave  the  chief  stimulus  to  the 
movement  in  Great  Britain,  and  the  authors  of  the 
"  Tracts  for  the  Times "  claimed  him,  not  without 
ground,  though  with  a  total  misconception  of  his 
larger  and  loftier  position,  as  one  of  its  first  founders. 
But  this  one  fact  of  itself  shows  that  the  change  of 
which  I  speak  was  altogether  independent  of  any 
extraneous  ecclesiastical  influence. 

The  ritual  of  the  Church  of  England,  which  Jenny 
Geddes  or  her  stool  cast  out  from  the  Episcopal  and 
Presbyterian  Churches  alike,  has  at  last  gained  com- 
plete possession  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  is  here 
and  there  making  its  way  even  in  Presbyterian 
Churches.  The  organ,  so  long  regarded  as  the  "  kist 
full  of  whistles,"  or  even  as  the  Beast  of  the  Apoc- 
alypse, has  been  heard  to  breathe  out  its  prelatic 
blasts  in  more  than  one  of  the  Established,  and  even 
of  the  Secession  Churches. 

The  architecture  of  mediaeval  times  has  in  our 
later  days  been  copied  by  every  branch  of  Presby- 
terianism.  The  remains  of  the  ancient  abbeys  are 
deeply  cherished  by  the  spiritual  descendants  of  the 
Protestant  mobs  who  destroyed  them,  sometimes 
even  more  than  by  the  spiritual  descendants  of  the 
ancient  Catholic  chiefs  who  built  them. 


170  UNION  OF   THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND      Lkct.  IV. 

Never  in  the  most  monastic  corner  of  Canterbury 
or  of  Westminster  have  I  found  an  eye  more  keen  to 
appreciate  or  a  tongue  more  ready  to  express  the 
peculiar  charm  of  Gothic  architecture  than  in  an  old 
Scottish  sacristan  of  the  parish  church  of  Dunblane, 
who  had  never  crossed  the  Border,  but  was  able,  with 
genuine  enthusiasm,  to  point  out  the  delicate  pro- 
portions, the  "  perfect  window,"  the  historic  associa- 
tions of  the  venerable  cathedral  under  which  his  own 
church  was  sheltered.  Lord  Cockburn  has  commem- 
orated in  an  epitaph  half  comical,  half  tragical,  the 
shoemaker  "  who  was  for  seventeen  years  the  keeper 
and  shower "  of  the  Cathedral  of  Elgin ;  and  told 
how,  "  whilst  not  even  the  Crown  was  doing  anything 
for  its  preservation,  he,  with  his  own  hands,  cleared 
it  of  many  thousand  cubic  yards  of  rubbish,  disinter- 
ring the  bases  of  the  pillars,  collecting  the  carved 
fragments,  and  introducing  order  and  propriety. 
Whoso  reverences  this  cathedral  will  respect  the 
memory  of  this  man."  No  Dean  of  Anglican  chap- 
ter or  Roman  basilica  is  more  proud  of  the  sacred 
edifice  committed  to  his  charge  than  is  the  parish 
minister  of  Sweetheart  Abbey,  amongst  the  ruins  of 
which  he  dwells,  and  whose  very  stones  he  delights 
to  honor. 

The  existence  of  this  wide-spread  feeling  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church  is  a  proof,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
however  much  the  Episcopal  Communion  may  assist, 
it  was  not  needed  to  create,  sentiments  and  tastes 
which  have  grown  up  indigenously  in  Scotland  itself. 
It  is  a  proof,  on  the  other  hand,  that  any  Scottish 
Episcopalian  who  understands  the  wants  of  his  age 
and  appreciates  the  feelings  of  his  countrymen,  will 


Lbct.  IV.  IN  REGARD  TO  EPISCOPALIANS.  171 

by  the  Church  of  Scotland  be  received  as  a  brother 
and  a  friend.  When  I  said  in  my  first  lecture  that 
the  future  mission  of  the  Episcopal  Church  was  prin- 
cipally to  convey  English  ideas  into  Scotland,  nothing 
was  further  from  my  thoughts  than  to  deny  the  ex- 
istence of  purely  northern  Episcopalians.  No  one 
knows  better  than  myself  how  genuine  is  the  Scottish 
blood  which  warms  many  a  true  Episcopalian  heart. 
It  has  not  been  my  intention  in  these  lectures  to 
name  any  living  illustrations  of  my  arguments,  but 
in  this  case  I  may  be  permitted  to  prove  the  Larger  iib- 
truth  of  my  position  by  pointing  to  two  dig-  IpSpa- 
nitaries  of  the  Scottish  Church,  to  whom  I  ^"*"^' 
refer  with  the  more  freedom  because  I  know  they  are 
not  present,  whom  I  select  from  their  brethren  both 
as  furnishing  the  most  undoubted  instances  of  this 
native  Caledonian  character  in  the  Episcopal  Com- 
munion, and  as  the  most  significant  examples  of  the 
general  truth  which  I  am  endeavoring  to  enforce. 

Is  there  any  single  ecclesiastic  in  Edinburgh  who 
rallies  round  him  a  wider  amount  of  genuine  Dean  Ram- 
Scottish  sentiment  and  brotherly  love,  than  *^^' 
that  venerable  Dean  who  is  an  absolute  imperso- 
nation of  "the  reminiscences"  of  all  the  Scottish 
Churches,  who  in  his  largeness  of  heart  embraces 
them  all,  and  in  his  steadfast  friendship,  his  generous 
championship  of  forgotten  truths  and  of  unpopular 
causes,  proves  himself  to  be  in  every  sense  the  in- 
heritor of  the  noble  Scottish  name  which  he  so 
worthily  bears  ? 

And  if  we  look  into  the  wilds  of  the  Highlands, 

—  although  it  is  "  a  far  cry  to  Loch  Awe,"  Bj^hop 

—  we  must  bring  out  from  thence  one  who,  ^''''°^' 


172  UNION   OF   THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND       Lect.  IV. 

in  all  meetings  of  Anglican  or  quasi-Anglican  prelates, 
bears  witness  by  his  very  countenance  and  appear- 
ance to  the  romantic  character  which  I  have  before 
described  as  the  main  link  in  the  last  century  between 
the  Scottish  Episcopalian  Church  and  the  rest  of  the 
nation.  There,  in  the  region  of  Argyll  and  the  Isles, 
may  be  seen  one  who  has  under  his  charge  the  most 
purely  native  and  unalloyed  specimens  of  hereditary 
Episcopalians ;  who,  in  all  the  graces  and  humors 
of  his  race,  is  a  Celtic  Scotsman  to  the  backbone ; 
who  has  always,  though  a  Bishop,  acknowledged  the 
Christian  character  of  his  Presbyterian  brethren; 
who,  though  a  Dissenter,  has  always  borne  his  testi- 
mony against  the  secularizing  influences  of  the  volun- 
tary system  of  which  he  is  an  unwilling  victim ;  who, 
thousrh  a  minister  of  one  of  the  secessions  from  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  has  always  lifted  up  his  voice  in 
behalf  of  those  wider  and  more  generous  views,  of 
which  the  grand  old  office  of  Episcopacy  was  intended 
to  be  the  depository,  and  to  which,  though  it  has 
often  been  unfaithful  in  Scotland  as  elsewhere,  it  may, 
through  such  men  as  those  of  whom  I  speak,  render 
the  most  signal  services  both  in  their  own  sphere 
and  in  the  Church  at  large. 

I  turn  to  the  other  sections  of  religious  life,  —  those 
which  more  nearly  adhere  to  the  national  form  of 
worship,  —  the  various  fragments  which  have  at 
various  times  broken  off*  from  the  Established  Church, 
and  which  I  have  described  as  inheriting  more  than 
any  other  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Covenanters.  No 
Larger  doubt  tlicrc  is  a  difficulty  in  bending  to  any 
of  these-  accommodatiou  the  stubborn  steadfjxstness 
Churches,    whicli  pridcs  itself  on  isolation,  and  lives  by 


Lect.  IV.     IN  REGARD  TO   THE  SECEDING  CHURCHES.     173 

disruption.  Often,  when  we  think  of  them  or  their 
forefathers,  on  the  mountain  side,  or  in  their  hall  of 
assembly,  the  well-known  lines  of  Milton  recur :  — 

"  Others  apart  sat  on  a  hill  retired, 
.     .     .     .     and  reasoned  high 
Of  providence,  foreknowledge,  will,  and  fate. 
Fixed  fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute. 
And  found  no  end,  in  wandering  mazes  lost." 

Yet  even  here  there  are  symptoms  of  a  spirit  from 
another  quarter  which  has  broken  and  will  still  more 
break  into  this  retirement. 

Even  David  Deans's  doubts  "  had  been  too  many 
and  too  critical  to  permit  him  unequivocally  to  unite 
with  any  of  the  seceders  from  the  National  Church. 
He  had  ever  been  a  humble  pleader  for  the  good  old 
cause  without  rushing  into  '  right-hand  excesses,  divis- 
ions, and  separations.  Even  he,  after  making  the 
necessary  distinctions  betwixt  compliance  and  defec- 
tion,' 'holding  back  and  stepping  aside,'  *  slipping  and 
stumbling,'  *  snares  and  errors,'  was  brought  to  the 
broad  admission  that  each  man's  conscience  would  be 
the  best  guide  for  his  pilotage,  and  that  in  the  Estab- 
lished Church  his  son-in-law  might  safely  find  a  field 
for  his  ministrations;  and,  on  his  death-bed,  it  was 
only,  as  May  Hettly  observed,  when  '  his  head  was 
carried '  and  his  mind  wandering  that  he  muttered 
something  'about  national  defections,  right-hand 
extremes  and  left-hand  fallings  off: '  his  deliberate 
expressions  were  of  duty,  of  humility,  and  of  the 
full  spirit  of  charity  with  all  men."  ^ 

In  like  manner,  let  us  hope  that  the  age  of  the 
Disruption  has  been  succeeded  by  a  generation  not 

1  Heart  of  Mid-Lothian. 


174  UNION   OF   THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND         Lect.  IV. 

baptized  into  that  fierce  fire,  and  probably  there  are 
few  now  in  Scotland  who  can  enter  into  the  violence 
with  which  at  that  time  households  were  rent  asunder, 
children  quarreled  in  the  streets,  ancient  friends 
parted.  Auchterarder,  the  scene  of  the  original  con- 
flict, after  a  few  years  settled  into  a  haven  of  perfect 
peace  ;  the  pastor  whose  intrusion  provoked  the  col- 
lision between  the  spiritual  and  civil  courts  lived  and 
died  respected  by  the  whole  parish.  Many  would 
now  join  with  the  honored  historian  of  the  catas- 
trophe of  1843  in  that  truly  Christian  discourse,  in 
which,  whilst  vindicating  the  right  of  the  Free 
Church  ^  to  sever  itself,  he  withdrew  any  claim  to  its 
being  regarded  as  a  fundamental  or  essential  prin- 
ciple of  religion. 

There  are  few  who  would  now  speak  of  a  well- 
intentioned  endeavor  to  reconcile  two  complex  legal 
claims  as  an  attempt  to  "hurl  the  Redeemer  from 
his  throne,"  and  "to  tear  the  crown  from  the  Sav- 
iour's head ; "  or  who  would  consider  that  even 
occasional  attendance  at  the  worship  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  was  "  a  sin,"  or  "  its  Church  meetings 
as  no  better  than  the  assembling  of  so  many  Moham- 
medans in  a  Turkish  mosque,"  or  "  the  parish  min- 
ister as  the  one  excommunicated  man  of  the  district, 
with  whom  no  one  is  to  join  in  prayer,  whose  church 
is  to  be  avoided  as  an  impure  and  unholy  place, 
whose  addresses  are  not  to  be  listened  to,  whose 
visits  are  not  to  be  received,  who  is  everywhere  to  be 
put  under  the  ban  of  the  community." 

These  exaggerated  expressions  of  party  spirit  are 

1  "  The  Church  and  its  Living  vembcr  13,  1859,  by  the  Rev.  John 
Head,"  a  sermon  preached  on  No-    Ilanna,  LL.  D. 


Lect.  IV.     IN  REGARD  TO  THE  SECEDING  CHURCHES.     175 

worth  citing  only  as  water-marks  of  the  tide  of  bit- 
terness, which  has  now  receded  far  into  the  ocean, 
never  more,  it  may  be  hoped,  to  recover  the  shores 
which  it  has  left. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  religious  fervor,  of  which 
the  Covenanters  and  the  seceders  of  various  views 
claim,  and  perhaps  with  justice,  to  be  the  predom- 
inant representatives,  has  overflowed  all  the  bor- 
ders of  the  Churches.  The  language,  no  doubt,  of 
Rutherford's  Letters  and  Thomas  Boston's  "Fourfold 
State  "  (as  of  Bunyan's  "  Grace  Abounding  "  amongst 
Englishmen),  is  now  antiquated  and  distasteful ;  but 
the  grace  and  beauty  of  their  devotion  is  appreciated 
in  a  far  wider  circle  than  when  they  lived.  And 
from  the  revivals  of  our  more  modern  days,  out  of 
the  smoke  and  sulphur  of  the  volcano  of  the  Disrup- 
tion, two  names  of  the  departed  emerge  of  which  the 
main  claims  consist  in  those  qualities  —  not  which 
divided  them  from  their  brethren,  but  which  brought 
them  together. 

Every  Scottish  Churchman,  I  had  almost  said  every 
Scotsman,  claims,  whether  before  or  after  Thomas 
1843,  the  honored  name  of  Chalmers.  To  chaimen.. 
attempt  to  portray  his  noble  character  would  be  in 
me  as  impertinent  as  for  you  it  would  be  needless. 
Yet  there  are  a  few  words  which  I  would  fain  utter 
—  the  more  so,  as  they  are  in  part  suggested  by  my 
own  humble  recollections  of  that  wise  and  good  man. 
Virgilium  tantum  vidi.  Eleven  days  before  his  death, 
in  the  city  of  Oxford,  for  the  first  and  last  time,  I 
had  the  privilege  of  speaking  with  Dr.  Chalmers.  I 
was  too  young  and  too  English  at  that  time  to  be 
much  occupied  with  the  divisions  which  parted  the 


176  UNION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND        Lect.  IV. 

Free  from  the  Established  Church;  and  there  was 
assuredly  nothmg  in  his  appearance  or  conversation 
which  recalled  them.  But  I  was  not  too  young  to 
appreciate,  nor  am  I  yet  too  old  to  forget,  the  force, 
the  liveliness,  the  charity  with  which  he  spoke  of 
everything  on  which  he  touched.  Three  points 
specially  have  remained  fixed  in  my  memory  which 
assuredly  betokened  a  son  not  of  the  Covenant,  but 
of  the  Church  universal.  He  was  full  of  the  contrast 
of  the  two  biographies  which  he  had  just  finished; 
one  was  that  of  "  John  Foster,"  the  other  of  "  Thomas 
Arnold."  "  Two  men,"  he  said,  "  so  good,  yet  with  a 
view  of  life  so  entirely  different ;  the  one  so  severe 
and  desponding,  the  other  so  joyous  and  hopeful." 
He  had  completed  the  perusal  of  another  book,  of 
which  it  seemed  equally  strange  that  he  should  have 
through  all  his  long  life  deferred  reading  it  till  that 
time,  and  that  having  so  delayed  he  should  then  have 
had  the  wonderful  energy  to  begin  and  master  it.  It 
was  Gibbon's  "  Decline  and  Fall ;  "  and  the  old  man's 
face.  Evangelical,  devout  Scotsman  as  he  was,  kin- 
dled into  enthusiasm  as  he  spoke  of  the  majesty, 
the  labor,  the  giant  grasp  displayed  by  that  greatest 
and  most  skeptical  of  English  historians.  Another 
spring  of  enthusiasm  was  opened  when  he  looked 
round  on  the  buildings  of  the  old  prelatic,  mediasval 
Oxford.  "  You  have  the  best  machinery  in  the  world, 
and  you  know  not  how  to  use  it."  Such  were  the 
words  which  are  still  written,  as  taken  down  from  his 
mouth,  on  the  photograph  of  the  University  Church 
in  the  High  Street,  which  was  given  to  him  by  his 
host^  at  that  time,  which  was  restored  to  that  host 

1  Henry  Acland,  now  the  distinguished  Regius  Professor   of  Medi- 
cine at  Oxford. 


Lect.  IV.     IN  REGARD   TO  THE  SECEDING  CHURCHES.     177 

by  Chalmers's  family  after  his  death,  and  by  him 
given  to  me  when  I  left  Oxford,  in  recollection  of 
that  visit.  "  You  have  the  best  machinery  in  the 
world,  and  you  know  not  how  to  use  it."  How  true, 
how  discriminating,  and  how  amply  justified  by  the 
prodigious  efforts  which,  as  I  trust,  since  that  time 
Oxford  has  made  to  use  that  good  machinery.  How 
unlike  to  the  passion  for  destruction  for  destruction's 
sake  which  has  taken  possession  of  many  who  use 
his  venerable  name  in  vain!  How  like  to  the  ac- 
tive, organizing  mind,  which  saw  in  establishments 
and  institutions  of  all  kinds  not  lumber  to  be  cast 
away,  but  machinery  to  be  cherished  and  used.  In 
front  of  that  academic  church  of  Oxford  we  parted, 
just  as  he  touched  on  the  question  of  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  Apocalypse.  "But  this,"  he  said,  " is 
too  long  to  discuss  here  and  now ;  you  must  come 
and  finish  our  conversation  when  we  meet  at  Edin- 
burgh." That  meeting  never  came.  He  returned 
home ;  and  the  next  tidings  I  had  of  him  was  that 
he  was  departed  out  of  this  world  of  strife. 

As  I  read  his  biography  that  brief  conversation 
rises  again  before  me,  and  seems  the  echo  of  those 
wider  and  more  generous  views  which  at  times  were 
overlaid  by  the  controversies  into  which  he  was 
drawn.  Such  is  his  own  account  of  his  lono-incj 
recollection  of  the  earlier  days  when  he  lived  in  the 
great  ideas  which  are  the  foundation  of  all  religion. 

"  0,  that  He  possessed  me  with  a  sense  of  his  holi- 
ness and  his  love,"  he  exclaims,  after  an  interval  of 
twenty-six  years,  "  as  He  at  one  time  possessed  me 
with  a  sense  of  his  goodness  and  his  power  and 
his  pervading  agency.     I  remember,"  he  continues, 

12 


178  UNION   OF   THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND        Lect.  IV. 

"  when  a  student  of  divinity,  and  long  before  I  could 
relish  evangelical  sentiment,  I  spent  nearly  a  twelve- 
month in  a  sort  of  mental  elysiam,  and  the  one  idea 
which  ministered  to  my  soul  all  its  rapture  was  the 
magnificence  of  the  Godhead  and  the  universal  sub- 
ordination of  all  things  to  the  one  great  purpose  for 
which  He  evolved  and  was  supporting  creation.  I 
should  like  to  be  so  inspired  over  again,  but  with 
such  a  view  of  the  Deity  as  coalesced  and  was  in 
harmony  with  the  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament." 
Such  a  view  he  doubtless  gained ;  nor  was  it,  if  we 
may  humbly  say  so,  in  any  way  incompatible  (if 
Science  and  Religion  both  be  true)  with  that  which 
was  the  source  of  his  earliest,  and,  so  it  would 
seem,  his  latest  religious  fervor/ 

Even  late  in  life  he  was  accused  by  suspicious 
zealots  of  being  an  enemy  to  Systematic  Divinity ; 
and  his  reply  was  certainly  not  calculated  to  allay 
the  alarm.  Long  did  he  cling  to  the  freer  and 
nobler  views  of  Theology.  "My  Christianity,"  he 
said  most  wisely  and  truly,  "  approaches  nearer  to 
Calvinism  than  to  any  of  the  isms  in  Church  history ; 
but  broadly  as  Calvin  announces  '  truth,'  he  does 
not  bring  it  forward  in  that  free  and  spontaneous 
manner  which  I  find  in  the  New  Testament."  The 
passage  from  English  poetry  which  he  quoted  more 
frequently  than  any  other  was  that  pregnant  pas- 
sage from  the  Moravian  Gambold,  which  contains 
within  itself  the  germs  of  all  the  broader  and  higher 
views  of  faith :  — 

«  The  man 
That  could  surround  the  sum  of  things,  and  spy 
The  heart  of  God  and  secrets  of  his  empire 

1  Hanna's  Life  of  Chalmers,  iii.  206. 


Lect.  IV.     IN  REGARD   TO   THE   SECEDING   CHURCHES.      179 

Would  speak  but  love.     With  love  the  bright  result 
Would  change  the  hue  of  intermediate  things, 
And  make  one  thing  of  all  theology." 

And  even  in  the  very  ferment  of  the  Sustentation 
Fund  he  could  exclaim,  "  Who  cares  about  the  Free 
Church  compared  with  the  Christian  good  of  the 
people  of  Scotland  ?  Who  cares  about  any  Church, 
but  as  an  instrument  of  Christian  good?  For  be 
assured  that  the  moral  and  religious  well-being  of 
the  population  is  of  infinitely  higher  importance 
than  the  advancement  of  a,ny  sect."  ^ 

The  other  departed  light  of  the  great  movement 
of  1843,  whom  I  would  recall  for  a  moment,  j^j^^  j^^^ 
is  one  whom  I  never  met,  but  whom  the  de-  ''*°* 
scriptions  of  his  friends  and  disciples  place  before  us 
in  so  vivid  a  light,  that  one  almost  seems  to  have 
seen  him,  —  in  his  multiflirious  learning,  in  his  sim- 
ple-minded, eccentric  detachment  from  all  the  cares 
of  this  world,  almost  a  Scottish  Neander,  —  I  mean 
Dr.  John  Duncan.  In  that  charming  volume,  which 
gives  the  most  casual,  but  also  the  most  intimate 
convictions  of  his  mind,  it  is  remarkable  that,  to  the 
peculiar  doctrines  which  divide  the  Free  Church 
from  the  Established,  there  is  hardly  an  allusion ; 
that  even  its  peculiar  Calvinistic  theology  and  Pres- 
byterian platform  occupies  a  very  secondary  place. 
"  I  am  first  a  Christian,  next  a  Catholic,  then  a  Cal- 
vinist,  fourthly  a  Peedo-Baptist,  and  fifth  a  Presby- 
terian." How  many  would  have  reversed  this  order, 
and  even  placed  before  all,  "  I  am  a  Covenanter ;  I 
am  a  Non-intrusionist."  "  I  suspect,"  he  said,  "  that, 
after  all,  there  is  only  one  heresy,  and  that  is  Anti- 

i  Hanna'8  Life  of  Chalmers,  i.  147,  241,  251  ;  iv.  384,  394. 


180         UNION   OF   THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.         Lect.  IV. 

noraianism."  How  many  there  are  who  think  almost 
everything  is  heresy  except  Antinomianism.  Again, 
let  us  hear  him  on  the  progress  of  theology.  "  There 
is  a  progressive  element  in  all  things,  and  therefore 

in  relicrion It  is  a  mistake   to  look  on   the 

Fathers  as  our  seniors.  They  are  our  juniors.  The 
Church  has  advanced  wonderfully  since  its  foundation 
was  laid."  Again,  let  us  hear  the  touching  descrip- 
tion of  an  ancient  Catholic  monument,  which  implies 
even  more  than  it  says:  "There  is  an  old  stone 
cross  of  granite  by  the  roadside  as  you  wind  up  the 
hill  at  Old  Buda  in  Hungary,  upon  which  a  worn  and 
defaced  image  of  our  Saviour  is  cut,  which  I  used 
often  to  pass.  Below  the  granite  block  are  the 
words,  '■  0  vos  omnes  qui  transitis  per  viam  attendite 
et  videte  si  est  ullus  dolor  sicut  dolor  mens.'  The 
thorough  woebegoneness  of  that  image  used  to 
haunt  me  long  —  that  old  bit  of  granite,  the  ideal 
of  human  sorrow,  weakness,  and  woebegoneness. 
To  this  day  it  will  come  back  before  me  —  always 
with  that  dumb  gaze  of  perfect  calmness  —  no  com- 
plaining —  the  picture  of  meek  and  mute  suffering. 
I  am  a  Protestant  and  dislike  image-worship,  yet 
never  can  I  get  that  statue  out  of  my  mind."  ^ 

I  might  follow  out  these  remarks  to  the  other  se- 
united  Ceding  communions.  I  have  already  spoken 
terians.  of  the  fiucr  clcmcnts  of  the  Relief  and  of 
the  Glassites  of  the  "  Secession ; "  I  gladly  record 
that  their  deadly  feud  with  Whitefield  was  at  last 
suspended.  And  for  the  United  Presbyterians,  it  is 
something  to  say  that  they  have  merged  at  least  one 

1  Peripatetica  (Reminiscences  of  Dr.  Duncan  by  his  friend  and  pupil, 
Dr.  Knight). 


Lect.  IV.  EDWARD  IRVING.  181 

difference  in  a  common  principle.  It  is  still  more 
to  say  that  they  have  relaxed  in  some  degree  the 
strictness  of  the  obligation  which  binds  the  Scottish 
Churches  to  the  Westminster  Confession.  It  is  most 
of  all  to  say  that  there  are  amongst  them  those  who 
regard  freedom  of  thought  as  more  valuable  than 
freedom  of  patronage,  and  that  "  Rab  and  his  Friends" 
and  the  "  Horce  Subsecivce  "  represent  to  all  the  world 
the  precious  gifts  which  all  the  Churches  equally 
may  long  to  claim. 

As  I  approach  the  Established  Church,  I  venture 
to  advert  to  yet  a  few  other  names  of  the  Edward 
dead,  which  belong  to  the  whole  Scottish  ^"''°e- 
Church  in  it  widest  sense.  One  is  Edward  Irving. 
If  by. the  pressure  of  an  exclusive  influence  which 
then  preponderated,  but  has  now  ceased,  within  the 
Scottish  Church,  he  was  cast  out  from  its  pale  —  if, 
partly  by  his  genius,  partly  by  his  eccentricities,  he 
soared  into  regions  far  removed  from  it,  he  was  not 
the  less,  by  nature  and  by  choice,  its  genuine  child. 
Well  it  is  that  he  should  rest  in  the  crypt  of  Glasgow 
Cathedral  —  that  one  great  religious  monument  of 
Scotland  which  combines  in  unbroken  continuity  the 
age  and  the  youth  of  her  eventful  history. 

No  Scottish,  no  English  divine  within  our  memory, 
has  so  nearly  succeeded  in  uniting  modern  thought 
with  the  stately,  stiff,  elaborate  oratory  of  ancient 
times.  His  true  teachers  were  the  great  writers  of 
a  wider  range  than  his  own  country  or  communion. 
Hooker's  "  Ecclesiastical  Polity,"  found  in  a  firm- 
house  near  Annan,  was,  as  he  calls  it,  "  the  venerable 
companion  of  his  early  years."  "  I  fear  not  to  con- 
fess," he  said,  "  that  Hooker,  Taylor,  and  Baxter  in 


182        UNION  OF   THE   CHURCH    OF   SCOTLAND.         Lect.  IV. 

theology ;  Bacon  and  Newton  and  Locke,  in  philoso- 
phy, have  been  my  companions,  as  Shakespeare  and 
Spenser  and  Milton  in  poetry.  I  cannot  learn  to 
think  as  they  have  done  —  that  is  the  gift  of  God  ; 
but  I  can  teach  myself  to  think  as  disinterestedly, 
and  to  express  as  honestly  what  I  think  and  feel." 
Coleridge  was  to  him  "  the  wise  and  generous  teacher, 
the  good  man  who  had  helped  an  anxious  inquirer 
to  the  way  of  truth."  ^  His  earliest  friend  and 
school-fellow  was  the  greatest  of  living  Scottish 
writers.  No  words  that  Thomas  Carlyle  ever  wrote 
are  more  full  of  pathos  than  those  which  fell  from 
his  pen  on  hearing  of  his  friend's  death.  "  Edward 
Irving's  career  has  closed.  The  spirit  of  the  time 
which  would  not  enlist  him  as  its  soldier  must  needs 
in  all  ways  fight  against  him  as  its  enemy  ;  it  has 
done  its  part,  and  he  has  done  his.  One  of  the 
noblest  natures  —  a  man  of  antique,  heroic  nature, 
in  questionable  modern  garniture  which  he  could  not 
wear.  But  for  him  I  had  never  known  what  is 
meant  by  the  communion  of  man  with  man.  His 
was  the  freest,  brotherliest,  bravest  human  soul  mine 
ever  came  in  contact  with.  I  call  him,  on  the  whole, 
the  best  man  I  have,  after  trial  enough,  found  in  this 

world,  or  now  hope  to  find The  voice  of  our 

son  of  thunder  —  with  its  deep  tone  of  wisdom  that 
belonged  to  all  articulate-speaking  ages,  never  in- 
audible amidst  wildest  dissonances  that  belong  to 
this  inarticulate  age  — has  gone  silent  so  soon. 
Closed  are  those  lips.  The  large  heart,  with  its  large 
bounty,  where  wretchedness  found  solacement,  and 
they  that  were  wandering  in  darkness  the  light  as  of 

1  Oliphant's  Life  of  Irving,  i.  30,  56,  416. 


Lect.  IV.  THOMAS   ERSKINE.  183 

a  home,  has  paused.  The  strong  man  can  no  more  ; 
beaten  on  from  without,  undermined  from  within,  he 
must  sink  overwearied  at  nightfall,  when  it  was  yet 
but  the  midseason  of  day.  He  was  forty-two  years 
and  some  months  old  ;  Scotland  sent  him  forth  a 
Herculean  man :  our  mad  Babylon  wore  and  wasted 
him  with    her   engines,    and   it     took    her    twelve 

years He    died   the    death    of  the    true  and 

brave.  His  last  words,  they  say,  were  '  In  life  and  in 
death  I  am  the  Lord's.'  He  sleeps  with  his  fathers 
in  that  loved  birthland,  Babylon,  with  its  deafening 
inanity  rages  on,  but  to  him  innocuous,  unheeded  for- 
ever." ^ 

The  mention  of  Carlyle  and  Irving  suggests  an- 
other,—  a  venerable  spirit  lately  removed  xhomas 
from  us,  dear  to  each  of  them,  dear  to  many  ^'■'*'''°«' 
a  Scottish  heart,  —  Thomas  Erskine  of  Linlathen, 
There  are  not  a  few  to  whom  that  attenuated  form 
and  furrowed  visage  seemed  a  more  direct  link  with 
the  unseen  world  than  any  other  that  had  crossed 
their  path  in  life.  Always  on  the  highest  summits 
at  once  of  intellectual  cultivation  and  of  religious 
speculation,  he  seemed  to  breathe  the  refined  atmos- 
phere, — 

"  Where  the  immortal  shapes 
Of  bright  aerial  spirits  live  insphered 
In  regions  mild  of  calm  and  serene  air, 
Above  the  smoke  and  stir  of  tliis  dim  spot, 
Which  men  call  Earth." 

Other  loving  hands  ^  may  describe  his  goings  out 

1  Carlyle,  Essaya.  Ewing,    which    contains    also    the 

2  For  the  present  it  may  be  suffi-  graceful  tribute  to  his  memory  by 
cient  to  refer  to  the  interesting  Pref-  Principal  Shairp.  Present  Day 
ace  to  "Some  Letters    of  Thomas  Papers,  pp.  1-G6. 

Erskine,"    by    his    friend    Bishop 


184         UNION  OF  THE   CHURCH   OF  SCOTLAND.         Lect.  IV. 

and  comings  in  amongst  you.  But  it  may  be  per- 
mitted to  an  English  stranger,  who  knew  him  only 
during  his  later  years,  to  bear  this  humble  testimony 
to  the  gift  which  the  Scottish  Church  in  all  its 
branches  received  in  that  aged  servant  of  the  Lord. 
I  have  heard  it  said  that  once  meeting  a  shepherd  in 
the  Highlands,  he  said  to  him,  in  that  tone  which 
combined  in  so  peculiar  a  manner  sweetness  and 
command,  and  with  that  penetrating  emphasis  which 
drew  out  of  every  word  that  he  used  the  whole  depth 
of  its  meaning,  "  Do  you  know  the  Father  ? "  and 
that  years  afterwards,  on  those  same  hills,  he  en- 
countered that  same  shepherd,  who  recognized  him, 
and  said,  "  I  know  the  Father  now."  The  story, 
whether  true  or  not,  well  illustrates  the  hold  which 
the  memory  of  that  face  and  figure  and  speech  had 
on  all  who  ever  came  across  it.  Never  shall  I  for- 
get, on  my  first  visit,  the  profound  pathos  with 
which,  in  family  worship,  he  read  and  commented 
on   the   136th  Psalm,  "  Who  smote  Egypt  and  his 

firstborn :   for  his  mercy  endureth  forever 

Who  smote  Pharaoh  in  the  Ked  Sea :  for  his  mercy 
endureth  forever."  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  there  was 
mercy  even  for  Pharaoh  ;  even  Egypt  and  his  first- 
born had  a  place  in  the  mercy  of  God  ;  "  and  then, 
with  the  same  thought,  darting  forward  to  a  like 
stern  text  of  the  New  Testament :  " '  Jacob  have  I 
chosen,  and  Esau  have  I  rejected ; '  yes,  but  Jacob 
was  chosen  for  his  special  purpose,  and  Esau  —  that 
fine  character  —  was  rejected  and  preserved  for 
another  purpose  not  less  special."  "  The  purpose 
of  God  is  to  make  us  better.  He  can  have  no  other 
intention  for  us." 


Lbct.  IV.  THOMAS  ERSKINE.  185 

No  written  record  can  reproduce  the  effect  of  con- 
versations, of  which  the  peculiar  charm  consisted  in 
the  exquisite  grace  with  which  he  passed  from  the 
earthly  to  the  heavenly,  from  the  humorous  to  the 
serious,  from  the  small  things  of  daily  affection  to 
the  great  things  of  the  ideal  world.  "  The  element 
of  the  bird  is  the  air ;  the  element  of  the  fish  is  the 
water ;  and  the  heart  of  God  is  Jacob  Bohmen's 
element."  This  was  a  favorite  quotation  of  his  from 
the  mj'^stical  Silesian.  "  That  is  true  of  all  of  us  ; 
we  are  just  fish  out  of  water  when  we  are  not  living 
in  the  heart  of  God."  "  What  is  Christianity  ?  It 
is  the  belief  in  the  inexhaustible  love  of  God  for 
man."  "  He  came  to  seek  that  which  is  lost  until  He 
find  itr  "  What  is  human  existence  ?  It  is  not  pro- 
bation, it  is  education.  Every  step  we  take  upwards 
or  downwards  is  a  stepping-stone  to  something  else." 
"  What  is  the  proper  use  of  Religion  ?  The  sun  was 
made  to  see  by,  not  to  look  at."^  "What  is  the 
effect  of  Revelation  to  us  ?  It  is  the  disclosure  to  us 
of  our  true  relations  to  God  and  to  one  another,  as 
when  an  exile,  after  long  years'  absence,  returns 
home,  arid  sees  faces  which  he  does  not  recognize. 
But  one  in  whom  he  can  trust  comes  and  says,  '  This 
aged  man  is  your  father ;  this  boy  is  your  brother, 
who  has  done  much  for  you ;  this  child  is  your  son.' " 
These  and  such  as  these  were  amongst  the  sublime 
thoughts  that  sustained  his  soul  in  what  at  times 
might  have  seemed  an  almost  entire  isolation  from 
all  ecclesiastical  ordinances,  but  what  was,  in  fact,  a 

1  This  saying  he  used  to  cite  as  cannot  think  of  God  without  think- 

one   of   the  best  of  his  esteemed  ing  of  Thomas  Erskine."    Present 

friend   Alexander   Scott,  who  was  Dai/  Papers,  p.  5. 
wont  to  say,  in  regard  to  him,  "  I 


186         UNION  OF  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.         Lbct.  IV. 

communion  with  the  inner  spirit  of  all.  Presbyte- 
rian by  his  paternal  connection  with  the  author  of 
the  Institutes  and  the  minister  of  Greyfriars/  Epis- 
copalian by  his  maternal  descent  and  by  his  early 
education,  it  came  to  pass  that  in  later  life,  whilst 
still  delighting  in  the  occasional  services  and  minis- 
trations of  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  enjoying  to 
the  last  the  tender  care  of  an  Episcopalian  curate, 
he  yet  habitually  frequented  the  worship  and  teach- 
ing of  the  National  Church,  both  in  country  and  in 
town  —  a  living  proof  of  the  efifacement  of  those 
boundary  lines  which,  before  the  exasperations  of 
our  latter  days,  were  to  many  of  the  best  Episcopa- 
lians and  Presbyterians  almost  as  if  they  did  not 
exist.  In  all  the  varying  Scottish  communions  he 
had  those  who  counted  his  friendship  one  of  their 
chief  privileges ;  and  not  only  there,  and  in  the 
hearts  of  loving  friends  in  England,  but  far  away 
with  Catholic  Frenchmen  in  Normandy,  and  in  the 
bright  religious  society  in  which  he  had  dwelt  in 
former  days  by  the  distant  shores  of  Geneva,  his 
memory  was  long  cherished,  and  will  not  pass  away 
so  long  as  any  survive  who  had  seen  him  face  to 
face. 

There  are  two  others,  of  a  far  different  type,  whom 
I  have  reserved  for  the  last,  because,  unlike  those 
whom  I  have  hitherto  noticed,  their  names  are 
known,  not  only  in  the  contracted  circles  of  a  theo- 
logical atmosphere,  not  only  through  the  length  and 
breadth  of  Scotland,  but  wherever  the  English  tongue 

1  He  used  to  say,  in  later  life,  "  I  with  his  peculiar  humor,  "  and  this, 

greatly  value    the  fixed    order  of  I  think,  is  the  one  single  spiritual 

Lessons  and  Psalms  in  the  Prayer-  benefit  which  I  have  received  from 

book " ;   and   then  he   would   add,  the  Church  of  England." 


Lect.  IV.  ROBERT  BURNS.  187 

is  spoken,  and  wherever  genius  and  wisdom  are  hon- 
ored, and  who  are  nevertheless  completely  Scotsmen, 
completely  Scottish  Churchmen,  in  the  largest  sense  ; 
who,  though  departed  from  us  for  a  longer  space  than 
those  I  have  just  named,  are  still  living  and  present 
influences ;  who,  in  their  different  measures,  can  be 
overlooked  in  no  Scottish  ecclesiastical  history  worthy 
of  the  name  —  I  mean  Kobert  Burns  and  Walter 
Scott. 

Each  of  these  great  men  represents  the  several 
tendencies  of  which  I  have  spoken,  —  the  Romantic, 
the  Independent,  and  the  Moderate  attitude  of  the 
Scottish  Church.  And  each  justifies  his  title  to  be 
considered  not  only  as  a  poet,  but  as  a  prophet  — 
not  only  as  a  delightful  companion  .  but  as  a  wise 
religious  teacher. 

Burns  was  the  Prodigal  Son  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land, but  he  was  still  her  genuine  offspring.  I  1^^,^^^ 
have  already  spoken  of  "  The  Cotter's  Satur-  ^'^™^- 
day  Night."  But  this  was  not  all.  He  who  could  pen 
the  keen  sarcasms  of  "  Holy  Willie's  Prayer,"  and  the 
"  Address  to  the  Unco'  Guid,"  which  pierce  through 
the  hollow  cant  and  narrow  pretensions  of  every 
church  in  Christendom  with  a  sword  too  trenchant 
but  hardly  too  severe,  showed  that  he  had  not  lived 
in  vain  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  philosophic  clergy 
and  laity  of  the  last  century,  whose  kindly  and  genial 
spirit  saved  him  from  being  driven  by  the  extrava- 
gant pretensions  of  the  popular  Scottish  religion  into 
absolute  unbelief  Much  as  there  may  be  in  these 
poems  that  we  lament,  yet  even  they  retain  frag- 
ments of  doctrine  not  less  truly  Evangelical  than 
philosophical. 


188         UNION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAM).        Lbct.  IV. 

"  Wha  made  the  heart,  'tis  He  alone 

Decidedly  can  try  us, 
He  knows  each  chord,  its  various  tone. 

Each  spring,  its  various  bias : 
Then  at  the  balance  let 's  be  mute. 

We  never  can  adjust  it ; 
What 's  done  we  partly  may  compute. 

But  ken  na  what 's  resistet." 

That  may  perhaps  not  be  the  theology  of  Calvin, 
but  it  certainly  is  the  theology  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount. 

What  prayer  more  comprehensive  and  more  pa- 
thetic was  ever  uttered  for  a  Christian  household 
than  that  left  at  the  manse  where  the  poet  had 
slept? 

"  O  thou  dread  Pow'r,  who  reign'st  above  1 
I  know  thou  wilt  me  hear  : 
When  for  this  scene  of  peace  and  love 
I  make  my  pray'r  sincere. 

"  The  hoary  sire  —  the  mortal  stroke 
Long,  long,  be  pleas'd  to  spare  ! 
To  bless  his  little  filial  flock. 
And  show  what  good  men  are. 

"  She,  who  her  lovely  offspring  eyes 

With  tender  hopes  and  fears, 

O  bless  her  with  a  mother's  joys. 

But  spare  a  mother's  tears  I 

"  Their  hope,  their  stay,  their  darling  youth, 
In  manhood's  dawning  blush ; 
Bless  him,  thou  God  of  love  and  truth, 
Up  to  a  parent's  wish  ! 

"  The  beauteous,  seraph  sister-band, 
'  With  earnest  tears  I  pray. 

Thou  know'st  the  snares  on  ev'ry  hand, 
Guide  thou  their  steps  alway  ! 

"  When  soon  or  late  they  reach  that  coast, 
O'er  Ufe's  rough  ocean  driv'n, 
May  they  rejoice,  no  wand'rer  lost, 
A  family  in  heav'n  I  " 


Lect.  IV.  ROBERT  BURNS.  189 

What  advice  more  profound  and  more  pastoral  was 
ever  given  as  a  guide  for  youth  than  in  the  "  Epistle 
to  a  Young  Friend  "  ?  — 

"  I  wave  the  quantum  o'  the  sin, 
The  hazard  o'  concealing ; 
But  och  !  it  hardens  a'  within, 
And  petrifies  the  feeling. 

"  The  fear  o'  hell 's  a  hangman's  whip, 

To  haud  the  wretch  in  order ; 
But  where  ye  feel  your  honor  grip, 

Let  that  aye  be  your  border  : 
In  slightest  touches,  instant  pause  — 

Debar  a'  side  pretenses ; 
And  resolutely  keep  its  laws. 

Uncaring  consequences. 

"  The  great  Creator  to  revere, 

Must  sure  become  the  creature  ; 
But  still  the  preaching  cant  forbear, 

And  ev'n  the  rigid  feature  : 
Yet  ne'er  with  wits  profane  to  range 

Be  complaisance  extended ; 
And  Atheist-laugh  's  a  poor  exchange 

For  Deity  offended  I 

"  When  ranting  round  in  pleasure's  ring, 

Religion  may  be  blinded  ; 
Or  if  she  gie  a  random  sting. 

It  may  be  little  minded  ; 
But  when  on  life  we're  tempest-driv'n, 

A  conscience  but  a  canker  — 
A  correspondence  fix'd  wi'  Heav'n 

Is  sure  a  noble  anchor. 

"  In  ploughman  phrase,  '  God  send  you  speed,' 
Still  daily  to  grow  wiser  ; 
And  may  ye  better  reck  the  rede, 
Than  ever  did  th'  Adviser." 

Behind  all  the  wretchedness  of  his  life,  and  all  the 
levity  of  his  language,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  in 


190         UNION   OF  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.         Lect.  IV. 

that  dark  struggle  the  traces  of  the  two  main  prin- 
ciples of  Scottish  religion  which  I  have  in  these  lec- 
tures endeavored  to  describe,  and  which,  in  one  short, 
impressive  passage,  Burns  has  himself  described  for 
us  :  — 

"  Still  there  are  two  great  pillars  that  bear  us  up,  amid  the  wreck 
of  misfortune  and  misery.  The  one  is  composed  of  the  different 
modifications  of  a  certain  noble,  stubborn  something  in  man,  known 
by  the  names  of  courage,  fortitude,  magnanimity.  The  other  is 
made  up  of  those  feelings  and  sentiments,  which,  however  the 
skeptic  may  deny  them,  or  the  enthusiastic  disfigure  them,  are  yet, 
I  am  convinced,  original  and  component  parts  of  the  human  soul ; 
those  senses  of  the  mind,  if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression,  which 
connect  us  with  and  link  us  to  those  awful  obscure  realities  —  an 
all-powerful,  and  equally  beneficent  God ;  and  a  world  to  come, 
beyond  death  and  the  grave.  The  first  gives  the  nerve  of  combat, 
while  a  ray  of  hope  beams  on  the  field :  the  last  pours  the  balm 
of  comfort  into  the  wounds  which  time  can  never  cure.^ 

Of  Walter  Scott  I  have  already  indicated,  by  the 
^^^^^J.  many  illustrations  which  his  works  supply, 
Scott.  j^Q^  Yie  has  sounded  all  the  depths  and  shoals 
of  Scottish  ecclesiastical  history  —  how  entirely  he 
has  identified  himself  with  every  phase  through 
which  it  has  passed,  even,  it  may  be,  those  which 
were  least  congenial  to  himself.  Episcopalian,  and, 
in  one  sense,  Jacobite  as  he  was  in  his  personal  feel- 
ings, yet  in  his  whole  public  life  he  never  parted 
from  the  Church  which  as  a  Scotsman  he  claimed  as 
his  own.  The  worship  of  that  Church  was  to  him 
"  our  national  worship  "  ;  ^  its  traditions  and  charac- 
ters counterbalance  many  times  over  in  his  writings 

1  For  the  -whole  complex  state-  to  the  Rev.  Principal  Baird,  July, 
ment  of  Burns's  life  and  teaching,  1828,  furnished  by  the  kindness  of 
see  Carlyle's  Essays,  i.  324-398.  Mr.  Bailey. 

2  UnpubUshed   letter    addressed 


Lect.  IV.  WALTER  SCOTT.  191 

those  which  he   derived  from    the    Episcopal  com- 
munion. 

It  would  require  a  separate  lecture  to  point  out 
the  services  which  he  has  rendered  to  the  Church  of 
Great  Britain  as  well  as  of  Scotland,  not  only  by  the 
wholesome,  manly,  invigorating  spirit  of  his  works,  — 
not  only  by  the  example  of  his  untiring  conscientious 
resolution,  not  only  by  the  equity  and  elevation  of 
his  judgment  of  the  contending  factions  in  the 
Scottish  Church  and  State,  but  by  the  firm  yet  ten- 
der grasp  with  which  he  handles  so  many  of  those 
graver  questions  which  now,  even  more  than  when 
he  lived,  exercise  modern  thought.  Such,  for  exam- 
ple, is  the  light  which  he  throws  by  incident  or  argu- 
ment, or  passing  speech,  in  one  or  other  of  his 
romances,  on  the  due  proportion  of  doctrine  and 
practice ;  on  the  power  of  prayer ;  on  the  effect  of 
miracles ;  on  the  intermingling  of  the  natural  and  the 
preternatural  in  human  history  ;  on  the  relations  of 
the  clergy  to  the  State  and  to  the  community  at 
large ;  on  the  superiority  of  internal  to  external 
evidence ;  on  the  critical  and  philosophical  compari- 
son of  the  several  parts  of  the  Bible  with  each  other; 
on  the  great  controversy  between  authority  and 
reason ;  on  the  relative  advantages  and  disadvan- 
tages of  the  Roman  and  the  Protestant  Churches ; 
on  the  distinctive  peculiarities  and  the  common 
features  of  the  Churches  of  England  and  Scotland  ; 
on  the  historical  characteristics  of  Christianity  and  of 
Mohammedanism  ;  on  the  effect  produced  in  all  our 
views  by  the  approach  of  Death  and  of  Eternity  ;  on 
the  nature  of  true  forgiveness ;  on  the  varying  yet 
identical  forms  of  superstition ;  on  the  essential  dif 


192         UNION  OF  THE   CHURCH  OF   SCOTLAND.         Lect  IV. 

ference  between  fanaticism  and  religion.  The  eluci- 
dations and  illustrations  which  abound  in  those 
mighty  works  of  fiction,  of  these  and  like  problems, 
are  more  than  enough  to  justify  the  place  here  given 
to  him  as  one  of  the  great  religious  teachers  of  Scot- 
tish Christendom.  Happy  that  Church  which  has 
been  blessed  with  such  a  theologian,  whose  voice  can 
be  heard  by  those  whom  no  sermons  ever  reach,  pro- 
*  claiming  lessons  which  no  preacher  or  divine  can 
afford  to  despise  or  to  neglect. 

In  thus  gathering  up  the  fruits  of  the  true  spiritual 
Warning  Church  of  Scotlaud,  I  have  dwelt  on  these 
mfaHibii-  ^  individual  instances  partly  because  they  bring 
parties.  out  iu  a  strougcr  light  what  I  wish  to  ex- 
press ;  partly  also  because  they  tend  to  enforce  a  les- 
son which,  greatly  needed  everywhere  at  this  time, 
is  specially  needed  in  the  ecclesiastical  atmosphere 
of  Scotland.  It  is  said  that  Oliver  Cromwell,  when 
addressing  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  said :  "  I  beseech  you,  my  beloved  brethren 
— I  beseech  you  in  the  bowels  of  Christ,  to  believe  that 
you  may  he  mistaken.^'  It  was  a  remark  pregnant  with 
wisdom,  an^  equall}^  applicable  to  Pope,  Prelate,  and 
Presbyter;  and  that  was  a  true  echo  of  it  which  was 
heard  in  the  advice  delivered  by  the  greatest  modern 
Scottish  philosopher  to  the  Seceders  of  1843,  and 
which  is  equally  applicable  to  all  phases  of  popular 
panic  and  contagious  excitement,  "  Be  not  martyrs  hy 
mistake^  But  over  and  above  the  general  lesson 
which  every  son  of  Adam  needs  against  believing  in 
his  own  infallibility,  I  venture  to  think  that  there  was 
a  peculiar  truth  in  the  saying  both  of  the  Protector 
and  the  philosopher.     It  is  this :  that  large  bodies  of 


Lect.  IV.  THE  ESTABLISHED  CHURCH.  193 

men,  especially  large  parties  of  men,  not  only  may  be 
mistaken,  but  are,  by  the  very  reason  of  their  moving 
in  masses  and  parties,  likely  to  be  mistaken.  And 
this  tendency  to  adopt  party  watchwords  as  oracles, 
and  to  turn  all  questions  into  party  watchwords,  is  a 
peculiar  temptation  in  our  own  time,  and  judging 
from  past  and  present  experience,  has  always  been  a 
special  temptation  in  Scotland.  Against  this  ten- 
dency one  of  the  greatest  safeguards  is  the  contem- 
plation of  such  individual  examples  as  I  have  given, 
which  strike  across  these  superficial  boundaries,  and 
which  prove  the  power  of  the  individual  being  to 
stand  by  his  own  internal  convictions,  and  to  bring, 
if  so  be,  the  world  round  to  himself,  if  only  he  is 
determined  not  to  follow  but  to  guide.  Of  all  the 
earnest  exhortations  which  Walter  Scott  delivered  to 
those  who  were  to  follow  him,  the  most  earnest,^  as 
though  it  were  engrained  in  his  mind  by  the  long  and 
bitter  experience  through  which  his  own  country  had 
passed,  is  the  entreaty  to  shun  party  spirit  as  one  of 
the  most  fatal  obstacles  to  the  public  good. 

Whilst  thus  insisting  on  the  elements  of  Scottish 
religious  life,  which  are  above  and  beyond  all  insti- 
tutions and  all  parties,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  the 
question  (not  what  party,  but)  what  institution  most 
corresponds  to  these  aspirations  ?  And  here  we  can- 
not doubt  that,  viewing  it  as  a  whole,  and  with  all 
allowance  for  its  short-comings,  it  must  be  that  insti- 
tution which  alone  bears  on  its  front  without  note  or 

comment,  the  title  of  "  The  Church  of  Scot-  The  Estab- 
lished 
land."    Like  all  the  other  religious  communi-  church. 

ties  in  the  country  it  is  compassed  about  with  its  own 

,        1  Tales  of  a  Grandfather,  3d  series. 
13 


194         UNION   OF   THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.         Lect.  IV. 

temporal  surroundings ;  but  it  is  the  one  which  in  its 
idea  most  answers  to  "  the  Church  without  a  name," 
of  which  I  spoke  at  the  beginning  of  this  lecture,  the 
Spiritual  or  Invisible  Church  which  owns  no  earthly 
head. 

As  of  the  Church  of  England,  so  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  and  of  every  National  Church,  the  glory  is, 
according  to  the  "  golden  maxim  "  of  the  "  ever- 
memorable  Hales,"  to  carry,  like  the  prophet  Amphi- 
araus,  a  "  blank  shield  with  no  device  of  sect  or 
party."  The  Episcopal  communion  carries  on  its 
shield,  by  the  mere  force  of  its  name,  the  device  of 
Episcopacy.  The  "  Free  Church  "  claims  by  the  as- 
sumption of  that  name  the  special  device  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  spiritual  above  the  civil  courts,  or  of 
the  principle  of  the  popular  election  of  its  ministers. 
The  Cameronians  exist  in  virtue  of  their  ancient  tes- 
timony for  the  Covenant.  The  United  Presbyterians 
bear  the  device  of  the  voluntary  system  and  of  the 
unlawfulness  of  contact  with  the  State.  But  the 
Established  Church,  from  which  these  have  all  se- 
ceded, bears  no  other  device  but  the  Thistle  of  the 
Its  histor-  Scottish  uatiou  and  the  historic  recollections 
ter.  of  the  Burning  Bush  of  the  Scottish  Church. 

Whatever  Scottish  Christianity  is  prepared  to  become, 
that  the  Church  of  Scotland  is  prepared  to  be.  It 
treats  Presbyterianism,  Episcopacy,  Patronage,  Non- 
intrusion, as  in  themselves  mere  accidents.  It  has 
gone  through  the  various  phases  of  the  wild  monastic 
clanship  of  the  Culdees,  of  the  Anglo-Norman  hier- 
archy of  St.  Margaret,  of  the  Scottish  hierarchy  of 
Robert  Bruce,  the  mixed  Presbyterian  and  Episcopal 
government  under  Queen  Mary  and  James  VI.,  the 


Lect.  IV.  THE  ESTABLISHED  CHURCH.  195 

mixed  Episcopal  and  Presbyterian  government  under 
Charles  I.  and  Charles  II.,  the  purely  Presbyterian 
government  from  William  III.  onwards.  It  has  passed 
through  the  Liturgy  and  the  Confession  of  John 
Knox,  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  the  Sum 
and  Substance  of  Saving  Doctrine,  the  "Westminster 
Confession  and  the  Westminster  Directory ;  and, 
again,  through  the  alternations  of  domination,  from 
the  Regent  Murray  to  Andrew  Melville,  to  Ruther- 
ford and  the  Covenanters,  to  Carstairs  and  the  Mod- 
erates, to  Chalmers  and  the  "  popular  party."  None 
of  these  phases  need  be  altogether  lost  to  it.  The 
Westminster  Confession,  no  less  than  the  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant,  will  always  be  preserved 
amongst  its  historical  documents,  although  both  may 
have  ceased  to  express  the  mind  of  the  modern 
Church  of  Scotland  ;  although,  as  time  rolls  on,  the 
stern  requirements  of  adhesion  to  the  Confession 
which  emanated  from  the  Jerusalem  Chamber  be  laid 
aside,  as  the  far  sterner  adhesion  to  the  Confession 
that  emanated  from  Grey  friars'  Church  has  been 
laid  aside  long  ago.  Its  romance,  its  independence, 
its  fervor,  its  prudence  — must  we  not  add  its  exqui- 
site and  unrivaled  humor  —  these  are  the  heir-looms 
of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  which  it  has  never  lost, 
and  which,  whatever  be  the  change  of  its  internal 
form,  it  need  never  lose. 

There  is  yet  this  further  merit  which  the  Church 
of  Scotland  mav  claim.     Whatever  may  be  its  Presby- 

t,        '        X  .  1  •  1    •         terian 

m  store  for  its  future,  its  past  history  and  its  character, 
present  condition  are  standing  proofs  that  not  only 
Christian  devotion,  but  Christian  culture  and  civilizar 
tion  can  coexist  with  a  form  of  ecclesiastical  govern- 


196  THE  ESTABLISHED   CHURCH.  Lect.  IV. 

ment  which  dates  only  from  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  with  a  Confession  of  Faith  which  is  derived  not 
from  Nicaea  or  Alexandria  but  from  Westminster ; 
not  from  Athanasius,  or  Constantine,  or  Charlemagne, 
or  Thomas  Aquinas,  but  Calvin.  In  the  total  col- 
lapse of  the  Episcopate  through  the  larger  part  of 
the  western  world,  since  nine  hundred  bishops  have 
accepted  an  acknowledged  fable  as  an  essential  arti- 
cle of  the  Christian  faith,  every  Episcopalian  ought 
to  be  thankful  for  the  existence  of  a  living  Christian 
Church,  which  shows  that  outside  the  pale  of  Prel- 
acy Christian  life  and  Christian  truth  can  flourish  and 
abound,  even  if  it  should  fail  amongst  the  Episcopal 
communions. 

And,  again,  it  is  a  standing  proof  that  the  idea  of 
Its  vital-  ^  National  Church,  so  fruitful  in  itself,  so 
^*^"  entwined  with  all  that  is  noblest  and  best  in 

the  feelings  both  of  citizens  and  of  Christians,  holds 
its  ground  against  all  the  undermining  influences 
brought  to  bear  upon  it.  Nothing  shows  more 
clearly  the  inherent  vitality  of  an  Established  Church, 
than  that  in  Scotland  it  should  have  survived  the 
tremendous  shock  of  the  Disruption.  It  is  the  glory 
of  the  Free  Church  that  it  maintained  itself  on  the 
strength  of  a  single  abstract  principle,  by  the  sheer 
force  of  self-denying  energy,  and  of  a  bold  appeal  to 
the  scruples  of  conscience.  It  is  the  still  greater 
glory  of  the  Established  Church  that  it  maintained 
itself  in  spite  of  the  loss  of  many  of  its  most  zealous 
ministers,  by  the  strength  of  its  ancient  traditions, 
by  its  firm  conviction  of  right,  and  by  its  promises 
of  a  glorious  future  ;  that  it  has  received  new  life 
into  its  ranks,  that  it  has  had  the  courage  to  repent 


Lect.  IV.  ITS  PROMISE  FOB  THE  FUTURE.  197 

of  its  former  errors,^  that  it  has  become  the  centre 
of  hopes  and  aspirations  unknown  to  its  own  former 
existence,  or  to  the  communions  which  have  divided 
from  it.  The  very  word  "  Kesiduary  "  used  against  it 
as  a  reproach,  was,  and  is,  its  best  title  of  honor. 
Churches  and  secessions  which  build  themselves  on 
particular  dogmas  are  not  residuary ;  they  gather 
to  them  many  of  the  most  ardent  and  energetic,  but 
they  gather  also  the  fierce  partisans  and  the  narrow 
proselytizers,  and  they  leave  out  of  sight  those  who 
are  unable  or  unwilling  to  follow  the  leaders  of  ex- 
tremes. But  churches  which  are  founded  on  no  such 
special  principles,  which  have  their  reason  of  exist- 
ence simply  because  they  profess  in  its  most  general 
aspect  the  form  of  Christianity  most  suitable  to  the 
age  or  country  in  which  they  live,  these  are  "  residu- 
ary "  churches,  because  they  gather  into  themselves 
the  residue  of  the  nation,  the  simple,  the  poor,  who 
are  too  little  instructed  to  imderstand  the  grounds 
which  separate  the  different  churches ;  the  refined, 
the  thoughtful,  who  understand  them  too  well  to  care 
about  them,  who  care  more  for  the  religious,  moral, 
and  intellectual  life  of  the  people  than  for  the 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  for  Non-Intrusion,  or 
for  spiritual  jurisdiction. 

If,  therefore,  the  liberal  intelligence  of  Scotland 
can  maintain  its  ground  against  the  force  of  party 
spirit,  there  is  little  fear  lest  the  Established  Church 
of  Scotland  should  lose  its  hold  on  the  affections  of 
the  Scottish  nation.     To  destroy  it  would  not  be  to 

1  As  for  example,  the  almost  en-    teaching  of  Dr.  John  M'Leod  Camp- 
tire  change  of  feeling  in  the  Estab-    bell.     See  Lecture  III. 
lished  Church  with  resard  to  the 


198  THE  ESTABLISHED  CHURCH.  Lect.  IV. 

destroy  merely  an  ancient  institution,  with  endow- 
ments which  would  be  taken  from  it  only  to  be  use- 
lessly squandered,  and  with  opportunities  for  Chris- 
tian beneficence  which  no  wise  man  would  willingly 
take  away  in  an  age  where  material  progress  is  so 
disproportionately  active  —  it  would  be  to  destroy, 
as  far  as  human  efforts  can  destroy,  the  special  ideas 
of  freedom,  of  growth,  of  comprehension  which  are 
avowedly  repugnant  to  the  very  purpose  of  the 
Seceding  Churches,  but  which  are  inherent  in  the 
very  existence  of  a  National  Church. 

The  Seceding  Churches,  whether  Episcopal  or 
itsreia-  Presbyteriau,  have  doubtless  their  own  pe- 
tionstothe  cuUar  missious.     As  in  Encrland,  so  in  Scot- 

Seceding  "  •' 

Churches,  jj^j^^^  [^  ^^g  the  folly  of  the  Established 
Church  not  to  acknowledge  and  utilize  these  pecul- 
iar missions  in  times  past,  so  it  will  be  the  wisdom 
of  the  Established  Church  in  both  countries  to  ac- 
knowledge and  utilize  them  in  times  to  come.  One 
of  the  most  distinguished  of  living  Scotsmen  once 
pointed  out  to  me  the  striking  architectural  effect 
which  presents  itself  on  ascending  to  the  old  city  of 
Edinburgh  in  the  well-known  view  of  the  Hall  of  the 
General  Assembly  as  seen  through  the  vista  of  the 
Free  Church  college.  Nowhere  else  is  either  seen 
to  such  advantage  as  when  the  chief  institution  of 
the  Church  of  the  Disruption  forms  the  foreground 
of  the  chief  seat  of  the  Church  of  the  Establishment. 
Take  away  either,  and  the  effect  would  be  annihi- 
lated. This  is  a  parable  which  applies  to  Established 
Churches  and  Seceding  Churches  everywhere..  The 
Mother  Church,  whether  of  England  or  Scotland,  can 
only  be  properly  appreciated  when  rising  behind  the 


Lect.  IV.  ITS  PROMISE  FOR  THE  FUTURE.  199 

foreground  of  the  Dissenting  Churches.  The  Dis- 
senting Churches  would  lose  half  their  significance 
if  the  Established  Church,  whose  short-comings  they 
desire  to  rectify,  but  from  which  they  derive  their 
original  life,  and  which  serves  to  them  as  a  centre 
and  support,  were  swept  away.  It  was  a  miserable 
intolerance  when  the  Established  Church  in  ancient 
times  endeavored  to  prevent  the  growth  of  Noncon- 
forming communities  that  satisfied  peculiar  wants 
which  from  its  very  nature  it  could  not  equally  sup- 
ply. It  would  be  an  act  of  still  more  inexcusable 
barbarism  if  in  our  more  enlio-htened  aoje  Secedintj 
Churches  were  in  their  turn  to  insist  on  a  new  Act 
of  Uniformity,  and,  by  destroying  the  Established 
Church,  extinguish  aspirations  which  they  can  never 
satisfy,  because  they  deny  their  lawfulness  and  con- 
demn their  development.  But  they  can  render  to 
the  Church  and  the  nation  of  Scotland  services  pecul- 
iarly their  own ;  they  can,  in  times  to  come,  as  in 
times  past,  keep  alive  in  the  heart  that  peculiar 
fire  of  devotion  and  warmth  which  in  Established 
Churches  is  sometimes  apt  to  die  out  in  the  light  of 
reason  and  the  breath  of  free  inquiry,  just  as  the  Es- 
tablished Church  has  been  the  means  of  sheltering 
the  intelligence,  without  which  devotion  dwindles 
into  fanaticism,  and  the  charity  and  moderation, 
without  which  the  most  ardent  zeal  profits  nothing. 

For  these  and  for  a  thousand  like  ministrations 
there  is  surely  ample  room  without  the  necessity  of 
divertino;  the  enero-ies  either  of  the  National  Church 
or  of  its  divided  branches  into  the  contemptible 
rivalry  of  destroying  and  crippling  each  other's 
usefulness. 


200         FUTUKE   OF  THE   CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAJSTD.     Lect.  IV. 

The  Church  of  Scotland  has  a  claim  on  the  at- 
its  claim  tachment  of  all  those  who  are  unwilling  to 
from"ln°-  ^^^  S^  ^^^  Opportunity  of  unfolding  to  the 
lishmen.  utmost  the  Capacities  of  an  institution  which 
has  already  done  so  much  for  the  civilization  and  the 
edification  of  the  whole  Empire.  Englishmen  and 
Scotsmen  of  all  persuasions  may  well  be  proud  of 
maintaining;  a  Church  which  has  at  times  in  these 
islands  been  the  chief  support  of  the  united  inter- 
ests of  culture,  freedom,  and  religion ;  a  Church 
which  Carstairs  and  Robertson,  Chalmers  and  Irving 
adorned ;  which  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Sir  William 
Hamilton  supported,  because  they  felt  that  no  existr 
ing  institution  could  equally  supply  its  place ;  of 
which  the  leading  statesman  of  the  last  generation, 
though  an  Englishman  and  an  Episcopalian,  thus 
spoke  to  the  students  of  the  University  of  Glasgow : 
"  When  I  have  joined  in  the  public  worship  of  your 
Church,  think  you  that  I  have  adverted  to  distinc- 
tions in  point  of  form,  to  questions  of  Church  govern- 
ment and  Church  discipline  ?  No  ;  but  with  a  wish 
as  hearty  and  as  cordial  as  you  can  entertain,  have  I 
deprecated  the  day  when  men  in  authority  or  legis- 
lation should  be  ashamed  or  unwilling  to  support  the 
National  Church  of  Scotland."  ^ 

There  spoke  the  true  voice  of  the  great  days  of 
English  statesmanship.  And  no  English  Churchman 
who  forecasts  the  signs  of  the  times  can  fail  to  echo 
the  hope.  Doubtless  the  Church  of  England  has 
much  to  suggest  to  the  Church  of  Scotland  which 
the  Church  of  Scotland,  at  least  in  the  present  day, 

1  Speech  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  at  Glasgow.     See  Chalmers's  Life,  iv. 
171. 


Lect.  IV.    ITS  KELATIONS  TO  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.   201 

is  most  eager  to  acknowledge.  I  yield  to  no  man 
living  in  my  hopes  of  the  magnificent  mission  which 
is  open  to  the  Established  Church  of  England,  if  only 
it  be  true  to  itself —  if  only  it  be  convinced  that  the 
true  method  of  self-defense  is  not  merely  to  repel  the 
attacks  of  its  adversaries,  but  to  turn  its  adversaries 
into  friends  by  the  fulfillment  of  its  lofty  vocation. 
But  the  Church  of  Scotland  has  also  its  own  to  give 
us  in  return.  It  gave  us  in  ancient  days  one  of  the 
best  of  our  prelates  —  the  first  complete  model  of  a 
truly  pastoral  bishop,  Gilbert  Burnet.  It  has  in 
these  latter  days  given  to  us  the  Primate  who  most 
recalls  the  enlightened  spirit  of  Tillotson  —  a  Scots- 
man of  the  Scots  —  Archibald  Campbell  Tait.  It  has 
in  these  latter  years  set  an  example  of  noble  liberal- 
ity to  all  the  Churches  by  its  readiness  in  welcoming 
in  its  pulpits  the  ministrations^  of  Prelatists  no  less 
than  of  its  own  seceding  members. 

When  I  think  of  the  cordial  and  intelligent  sym- 
pathy which  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  encounter 
in  many  a  manse,  east  and  west,  highland  and  low- 
land ;  when  I  think  of  the  freedom  and  charity 
which  have  inspired  the  ministrations  of  Greyfriars* 
Church  in  Edinburgh,  past  and  present ;  when  I  re- 
flect on  the  teaching  that  has  gone  forth  and  is  going 
forth  from  the  Cathedral  and  Barony  Church  of  Glas- 
gow, and  from  that  noble  University  which  has  done 
so  much  in  former  days,  and  in  our  own,  for  uniting 
in  the  closest  bonds  of  affection  the  intellectual  and 

1  I  am  aware  that  the  law  of  the  ing  that  it  is  hitherto  only  in  the 

various    Presbyterian    communions  Established  Church  that  this  liberty 

leaves  it  equally  open  to   them  to  —  at  least  as  regards  the  Episcopal 

avail  themselves  of  this  liberty.  But  clergy  — has  been  acted  upon. 
I  believe  that  I  am  correct  in  say- 


202        FUTURE   OF   THE   CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND.     Lbct.  IV. 

moral  life  of  both  countries ;  when  I  call  to  mind  the 
true  union  of  philosophy  and  religion  which  in  the 
pulpit  of  the  National  Church  welcomed  the  scientific 
gathering  at  Dundee ;  when  I  remember  what  I  may 
be  allowed  to  call  my  own  St.  Andrew's,  with  the 
genial  intercourse  and  varied  learning  which  has  so 
often  cheered  my  studies,  as  I  have  lingered  there 
listening  to  "  the  two  mighty  voices  "  of  its  sounding 
sea  and  its  vast  cathedral :  when  I  think  of  all  these 
things,  I  cannot  doubt  of  the  true  freedom  and 
strength  (in  all  that  constitutes  real  freedom  and 
strength)  of  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland. 

It  was,  in  old  days,  customary  for  Oxford  divines 
to  speak  of  the  Church  of  England  as  Judah,  and 
the  Church  of  Scotland  as  Samaria.^  That  con- 
temptuous thought  has  now  been  exchanged  for  a 
wiser  and  a  better  feeling.  The  most  accomplished 
scholar,  the  most  purely  Oxford  theologian  amongst 
the  Scottish  bishops,  has  in  these  latter  days  spoken 
with  a  far  truer  and  nobler  sense  of  the  mutual  rela- 
tions of  the  two  Churches,  and  entreated  them  to  be 
at  one  with  another  on  the  equal  terms  of  "  Euodias 
and  Syntyche."  ^  Yet  Scotland  might,  if  she  chose, 
not  altogether  refuse  the  ancient  reproach  of  Sa- 
maria. Samaria  had  prophets  at  times  when  Judah 
was  in  darkness.  The  stern  Elijah,  the  beneficent 
Elisha,  the  simple  Amos,  the  tender  Hosea,  had  their 
home  not  in  the  southern  but  in  the  northern  king- 
dom ;  and  the  hills  and  vales  of  Galilee  nurtured  the 
Divine  Light  which  Jerusalem  labored  to  extinguish. 
But  there  is,  if  I  may  continue   the  sacred  parallel 

1  See  the  Lyra  Apostolica.  Charles  Wordsworth,  D.  D.  (Bishop 

2  Euodias      and     Syntyche,     by    of  St.  Andrew's). 


Lect.  IV.    ITS  RELATIONS  TO  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.   203 

yet  further,  a  better  and  a  nobler  end  for  both.  As 
in  those  two  divided  Churches  of  Palestine,  so  in 
these  two  once  rival  Churches  of  Britain,  the  highest 
prophetic  instinct  points  to  a  time  when  these  re- 
criminations will  cease  forever,  —  "  when  Judah  shall 
no  longer  vex  Ephraim,  and  Ephraim  shall  no  longer 
envy  Judah." 


CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


CELTIC    CHURCH. 
A.  X>. 

360-432.  St.  Ninian  in  Galloway. 

432.  St.  Palladius,  St.  Serf,  and  St.  Ternan  in  Fifeshire. 

454-601.  St.  Kentigern  in  Strathclyde. 

563-597.  St.  Columba  in  lona. 

865.  Migration  of  Kenneth  to  Scone. 

MEDIEVAL    CHURCH. 

1080.  Marriage  of  Malcolm  Canmore  and  Margaret  at  Dunfermline. 

Norman  hierarchy. 
1124-1153.  Reign  and  religious  foundations  of  St.  David. 
1305-1329.  Reign  of  Robert  the  Bruce.     Severance  of  the  connection 

with  England. 
1440-1465.  Kennedy,  Bishop  of  St.  Andrew's. 
1472.  St.  Andrew's  converted  into  a  metropolitan  see. 

REFORMATION. 

1539.  Death  of  Patrick  Hamilton. 

1546.  Death  of  George  Wishart.     Murder  of  Cardinal  Beaton. 

1547-1572.  Preaching  of  John  Knox. 

1560.  Adoption  of  the  Confession  of  Knox,  and  abolition  of  the  Ro- 

man Catholic  Church  by  the  Scottish  Parliament,  August 
17-24.  Meeting  of  the  First  General  Assembly,  Decem- 
ber 20. 

1561.  Arrival  of  Queen  Mary. 

1565.  Marriage  with  Darnley. 

1566.  Murder  of  Rizzio. 

1567.  Murder  of  Darnley. 
1567-1570.  Regency  of  Murray. 
1570-1581.  Regency  of  Morton. 
1570.  Restoration  of  Episcopacy. 
1572.  Death  of  Knox. 

1574-1606.  Preaching  of  Andrew  Melville. 
1582.  Death  of  George  Buchanan. 


206  CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE 

A,   D. 

1586.  Death  of  Queen  Mary. 
1592.  Restoration  of  Presbytery. 

ECCLESIASTICAL   STRUGGLES   WITH   ENGLAND. 

1603.  Accession  of  James  VL  to  the  throne  of  Great  Britain. 

1606.  Restoration  of  Episcopacy. 

1618.  The  Five  Articles  of  Perth. 

1625.  Accession  of  Charles  L 

1633.  Coronation  at  Holyrood.     Valuation  of  tithes. 

1637.  Attempt   to  impose  the    EngUsh    Liturgy.     Tumult  at    St. 

Giles's. 

1638.  The  National  Covenant.     General  Assembly  of  Glasgow.  Res- 

toration of  Presbytery. 

1 643.  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  to  enforce  Presbytery  throughout 
the  kingdom.     Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster. 

1648.  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith.  Longer  and  Shorter  Cate- 
chisms. 

1650.  Battle  of  Dunbar. 

1651.  Coronation  of  Charles  11.  at  Scone. 

1660.  Restoration. 

1661.  Rescissory  Act.     Death  of  Samuel  Rutherford. 
1€62.  Restoration  of  Episcopacy. 

1665-1687.  Persecution  of  the  Covenanters. 

1679.  Murder  of  Archbishop  Sharpe.     Battle  of  Bothwell  Brigg. 

REVOLUTION  SETTLEMENT. 

1688.  The  Convention. 

1689.  Restoration  of  Presbytery. 

1690.  General  Assembly.     Separation  of  Cameronians. 

1691.  Suppression  of  Episcopacy. 

1694.  Carstairs  and  the  Oath  of  Assurance. 

1707.  Act  of  Union. 

1712.  Patronage  Act.  1712.  Legal  Protection  of  the  Epis- 

1715.  Death  of  Carstairs.  copal  communion. 

1718-1722.    "Marrow  con- 
troversy." 

1728-1729.  "  Simson  contro-  1724-1727.  Usagers  and  Collegere. 
versy." 

1 734.  Death  of  Wodrow. 

1732-1 734.   Secession  of  the 
Erskines. 

1736.  Porteous  mob,   "Ju- 
dicial Testi- 
mony." 


CHURCH  OF 

A.  D. 

1725-1739.  Secession  of  the 
Glassites. 

1741.  First     Preaching    of 
Whitefield. 

1 744.  "  Leechman    contro- 
versy." 

1746.  Division  between 
Burghers  and 
Antiburghers. 

1751-1780.  Administra- 
tion of  William 
Robertson. 

1 752.  Secession  of  the  "  Re- 
lief" 

1757.  Tragedy    of  "Doug- 
las." 

1763.  Hume  and  Campbell. 

1779.  Agitation    on    Penal 
Laws. 

1780-1790.  The     Buchan- 
ites. 

1798.  Preaching    of    Row- 
land Hill. 

1833.  Deposition    of    Ed- 

ward Irving. 

1834.  His  death. 
1843.  Disruption. 

1847.  United  Presbyteri- 
ans. Death  of 
Chalmers; 


SCOTLAND. 


207 


1 745.  Revolt  of  Charles  Edward. 

1 746.  Episcopalian  Disabilities. 


1765.  Introduction  of  Scottish  Com- 
munion Office. 

1784.  Concordat  with  Bishop  Sea- 
bury  of  Connecticut. 

1792.  Repeal  of  Episcopalian  Dis- 
abilities. 


1804.  Acceptance  of  the  Thirty-nine 

Ai-ticles. 
1838.  Death  of  Bishop  Jolly. 


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pensive form — as  a  text-book,  has  induced  the  preparation  of  this  abridged  and  cheaper 
edition,  which  contains  all  the  matter  of  the  larger  work  necessary  for  use  in  the  class-room. 


FROUDE'S  SHORT  STUDIES,  SECOND  SERIES. 


THE  SECOND  SERIES  OF 


jS|orf  ^fu&ips  on  (|ppaf  ^uiijprfx. 

By  J.  A.  FROUDE,  LL.D.,  Author  of  the  "  History  of  England." 
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on  "The  Condition  and  Prospects  of  Protestantism,"  on  "Progress,"  "Education,"  the 
"Scientitic  Method  Applied  to  History,"  &c.,  &c.,  with  several  which,  although  lightet 
•nd  more  ephemeral,  add  greatly  to  the  entertaining  character  of  the  volume. 

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JOWETTS  DIALOOUES  OF  PLATO. 

The  Dialogues  of  Plato. 

Translated  into  English,  wiih  Analysis  and  Introductions,  by  B.  Jowett,  M.A., 

Master  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  ancf  Regius  Professor  of  Greek. 

Four  vols.,  crown  8vo,  $12.00  per  set,  in  cloth,  or  one-half  the  price  of  the  English  edition. 

Frotn  the  New  York  Tribune. 
The  peculiar  distinction  of  Professor  Jowett  is  his  eminence  as  a  scholar,  especially  in 
the  language  and  literature  of  ancient  Greece.  Of  this  the  impress  is  stamped  on  the  pages 
of  the  great  work  before  us.  With  no  parade  of  learning,  there  is  perpetual  evidence  of 
profound  mastery  o*"  the  subject ;  the  ease  and  grace  with  which  the  matter  is  handled 
comes  from  knowlecge  that  is  an  habitual  possession  of  the  mind,  and  not  prepared  for 
the  occasion  :  while  the  idiomatic  force  and  precision  of  the  style  shows  an  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  the  resources  of  the  English  tongue.  The  pleasant  flow  of  the  language  makes 
ihe  reading  of  the  translation  a  constant  enjoyment.  We  do  not  know  the  theory  on  which 
it  is  founded,  or  if  it  is  founded  on  any  theory  at  all ;  but  it  is  certain  that,  apart  from  the 
nature  ">f  the  topics  under  discussion,  and  the  local  coloring  and  environment  of  the  scene, 
ihere  is  little  to  remind  us  that  it  is  not  an  original  production  in  the  vernacular.  For 
aught  that  is  here  indicated  to  the  contrary,  the  bees  that  setded  on  Plato's  lips  might 
as  well  have  swarmed  from  an  English  as  an  Attic  hive. 

CURTIUS'  GREECE.       ^ 


THE    SECOND    VOLUME    OF 

THE  HISTORY  OF  GREECE. 

By  Prof.  Dr.  ERNST  CURTIUS. 
Translated  by  Adolphus  William  Ward,  M.  A.,  Fellow  of  St.  Peter's  College,  Cam- 
bridge.    Revised  after  the  latest  German  edition  by  W.  A.  Packard, 
Professor  of  Latin  in  Princeton  College. 
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made  to  the  latest  German  edition  have  been  specially  translated  for  the  American  editJou, 
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A  PJEW  PHILOLOOICAL  WORK. 

AMERICANISMS; 

Or,  THE  ENGLISH  OF  THE  NEW  WORLD. 

By  Prof.  ScHELE  DE  Vere,  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  Author  of  "  .Studies  in  English," 

&c.     I  vol.  cr.  8vo,  printed  on  laid  and  tinted  paper,  600  pages.     Price  in  cloth,  $3. 

Prof.  De  Vere,  whose  Studies  tn  Etiglish  have  secured  him  a  hish  reputation  -among 
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been  explored  so  thoroughly  or  so  attractively.  He  traces  a  large  number  :)f  *  Ameti 
csmisms  "  never  before  identihed,  and  by  grouping  them  all  in  chapters  according  to  their 
respective  derivations,  gains  the  opportunity  to  develop  the  subject  in  a  systematic  and  moal 
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^Ipologirelf  enb  pj^iKosopl^irelflli&rarp,. 

A  Series  of  Text-Books,,  Orii^iiial  niiei  Translated,  for  Collej^es  and 
Theological  Seminaries. 

EDIIRD   BV 

HENRY    B.    SMITH,    D.  D.,    and    PHILIP    SCHAFF,    D.  D., 

IROFKSSORS  IN  THE  UMON  THROl.OGICAL  SEMINARY,  NEW  YORK. 

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A  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

FROM  THALES  TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME. 
V>y  Dr.  F.  Ueberweg,  late  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Kbnigsberg. 

Translated  by  George   S.    Morris,   Professor  of  Modem   Languages  in   the  T.'niversitjr 

of  Michigan.     Kdiled.  with  additions,  by  NoAH  Porter,  1,1.  1)     President  of 

Yale  College,  with  an  Introduction  by  the  Editors  of  the  Library. 

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his  pen.  ^ 

LANGE'S   COMMENTARY. 

ANOTHER  OLD  TESTAMENT  VOLUME. 

JOSHUA,    Translated    and    Edited    by    Rev.    Geo.    1!liss,    D.D.,    Lewisburg,    Pa. 
JUDGES  and  RUTH,  by  Rev.  P.  H    Steenstra,  Cambridge. 

The  Volumes  previously  published  are  : 
OLD    TESTAMENT.— I.   GENESIS.      II.   PROVERBS,    SONG    OF    SOLO- 
MON, ECCLESIASTES.     III.  JEREMIAH  and  LAMENTATION. 
NEAAT  TESTAMENT.— I.   MAITHEW.     II.  MARK  and  LUKE.     111.  JOHN. 
IV.  ACTS.    V.  THE  EPISTLE  OF  PAUL  TO  THE  ROMANS.    VI.  COR- 
INTHIANS.     VII.  THKSSALONIANS,  TIMOTHY,  TITUS,  PHILEMON, 
aiid    HE15KEWS.      VIII.    GALATIANS,    EPHESIANS,    PHILII'PIANS. 
COLOSSIANS.     IX.  THE   EPISTLES   GENERAL  OF  JAMES,   PETER. 
JOHN,  and  JUDE. 
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Memoir  s  Robert  Chambers. 

WITH    AUTOBlCCRArmC 

REMINISCENCES  OF  WILLIAM  CHAMBERS. 

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description  of  hew  these  brothers  managed  to  build  up,  step  by  step,  from  small  beginnings, 
one  of  the  largest  printing  and  publishing  establishments  in  .Scotland.  ...  It  is  replete 
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humblest  iii  station,  but  for  the  least  intellectually  gifted." 


THE  HEART  OF  ARABIA. 

A     NFAV    VOLUME    IN     THE 

ILLUSTRATED  LIBRARY  OF   TRAVEL   AND  ADVENTURE. 

Compiled    and    arranged    by     BAYARD    TAYLOR. 

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Mr.  Taylor  here  gatlers  together  all  that  travellers,  ancient  and  modern,  have  learned 

regarding   this   little-tnown  region.      The  explorations  of  Palgrave,  Niebuhr,  and   IJurtou 

take  up  the  larger  part  of  the  voliune,  and  comprise  as  thrilling  incidents  of  adventure  and 

daring  as  the  literature  of  travel  anywhere  furnishes. 


HISTORY  OF  GREECE.-VOL.  III. 

Uy  Dr.  E.  CURTIU.S.  Completing  the  Pe'oponnesian  War.  With  a  complete  index  to 
the  three  volumes.  Revised,  alter  the  latest  German  edition,  by  W.  A.  Packaku, 
Professor  of  Latin  in  Princeton  College.  One  vol.  crown  8vo.  Cloth.  Per  vol.,  §2.50. 
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most  important  periods  of  the  history  of  Greece.     The  latest  additions  and  revisions  by  the 

author  have  been  incorporated  in  the  text  by  Prof.  Packard,  making  this  edition  superior  to 

ihe  Knglish.  

ELECTRICITY. 

A    NEiy    VOLUME    IN    THE   SECOND    SERIES    OF    THE 
ILLUSTRATED    LIBRARY  OF   WONDERS. 

By  J.  BAILE.  Revived,  with  additions,  by  Dr.  J.  W.  Akmstrong,  President  of  the  Nor- 
mal School,  Fredonia,  N.  Y. 

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which  he  had  made,  bring  it  down  to  the  latest  dates,  and  make  the  volume  a  most  valuable 

ma-nual 

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OF 

TRAVEL,    EXPLORATION, 

AND  ADVENTURE. 

EDITED  UY 

BAYARD    TAYLOR. 

The  extraordinary  popularity  of  the  Illustrated  Library  of  Wonders  (nearly  (»m 
and  a  hnlf  iiiillioit  copies  having  been  sold  in  this  country  and  in  France)  is  considered  by 
the  publisliers  a  sulTicient  guarantee  of  the  success  of  an  Ilix'Strateo  I.ihrakv  of  Travei, 
Exi'LORATioN,  and  Adveniuke,  embracing  the  same  decidedly  interesting  and  permanently 
valuable  features.  Upon  this  new  enterprise  Chaki.es  Sckiiiner  &  Co.  will  bring  to  beat 
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works  of  the  day,  but  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  graphic  and  fascinating  in  narrative 
and  description. 

Each  volume  will  be  complete  in  itself,  and  will  contain,  first,  a  brief  preliminary  sketch 
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be  necessary  to  explain  what  has  been  achieved  by  later  ones  ;  an  .  finally,  a  condensation 
of  one  or  more  of  the  most  important  narratives  of  recent  travel,  accompanied  with  illustra- 
tions of  the  sccnerj',  architecture,  and  life  of  the  races,  drawn  only  from  the  most  authentic 
sources.  An  occasional  volume  will  also  be  intioduced  in  the  Library,  detailing  the  exploits 
of  individual  adventurers.  The  entire  series  will  thus  furnish  a  clear,  picturesque,  and  prac- 
tical survey  of  our  present  knowledge  of  lands  and  races  as  supplied  by  the  accounts  ol 
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to  young  as  well  as  old,  and  the  publishers  intend  to  make  it  a  necessity  in  every  family  of 
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TWO  VOLUMES    NOW    READY. 


JAPAN. 

Illustrated  with  a  finely  engraved  ^L^p  and  more  than  thirty  beautiful  Wood-cuts. 

1 

WILD   MEN  AND  WILD   BEASTS. 

By  LiEUT.-CoL.  GORDON   CUMiMING. 


The  following  volumes  are  also  well  advanced,  and  will  be  issued  at  about  montlily 
intervals  :  — 

ARABIA.  SOUTH    AFRICA. 

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I\  NEWSERIES  OF 

^5^  inusfrafpb  Hifiparg  of  WonSprs, 

ENLARGED    IN    SIZE,    IN   A   NEW    STYLE   OF   BIXDING,    AND    EDITED 
BY    PROMINENT   AMERICAN   AUTHORS. 
The  extraordinary  success  of  the  Illustratrd  Library  of  Wonders  has  encouraged 
ihc  publishers  to  still  further  efforts  to  increase  the  attractions  and  value  of  these  adniira)>le 
books.     In  the  new  series,  which  has  just  been  commenced  with  The  Wonders  of  WateR] 
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volumes  are  edited  by  distinguished  American  authors  and  scientists. 
The  following  volumes  will  introduce 

THE  SECOND  SERIES  OF  THE 

Illustrated  Library  of  Wonders. 


MOUNTAIN  ADVENTURES.     (39  Il- 
lustrations.)    Edited  by  J.  T.  Headley. 

WONDERS       OF       ELECTRICITY. 

Edited  by  Dr.  J.  W.  Ar.mstrong,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Stale  Normal  School,  Fredonia, 
N.  Y. 


WONDERS  OF  VEGETATION.  (Over 

40  Illustrations.)     Edited  by  Pruf.  SoiELK 

De  Yere. 
WONDERS    OF    WATER.     (64  Ilhis- 

trations.)     Edited   by   Prof.    Schele   Db 

Verb. 
WONDERS    OF    ENGRAVING.     (34 

Illustrations.) 


THE  FIRST  SERIES  OF 


^5p  IHusfrflfpb  Hiftparg  of  Honbpps 

Comprises  Twenty  Volumes,  containing  over  1,000  Beautiful  Illustrations. 
These  twenty  volumes  in  c'.oth,  or  in  half  roan,  gilt  top,  are  furnished  in  a  black  walnut  case 
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WONDERS  OF  NATURE. 

No.  lUus. 

THE  HUMAN  BODY    ...  43 

THE  SUBLIME  IN  NATURE    .  44 

INTELLIGENCE  OF  ANIMALS  54 

THUNDER  AND  LIGHTNING.  39 

BOTTOM  OF  THE  SEA       .        .  68 

THE  HEAVENS      ....  48 
6  Vols,  in  a  iteat  box,  .fg. 


WONDERS  OF  ART. 


ITALIAN  ART 
EUROPEAN  ART  . 
ARCHITECTURE    . 
GLASS-MAKING     . 
WONDERS  OF  POMPEII 
EGYPT  3,300  YEARS  AGO 
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Xo.  Illus 
28 


WONDERS  OF  SCIENCE. 

No.  Jllus. 
THE  SUN.  By  Guillemin  .  .  58 
WONDERS  OF  HEAT  .         .      93 

OPTICAL  WONDERS  ...      71 
WONDERS  OF  ACOUSTICS      .     no 
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ADVENTURES  &  EXPLOITS. 

No.  lilus. 
WONDERFUL  ESCAPES  .  .  26 
BODILY  STRENGTH  &  SKILL  70 
BALLOON  ASCENTS  ...  30 
GREAT  HUNTS  ....  21 
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tt  any  address  on  application. 

SCRIBNER.  ARMSTRONG,  &  CO.  654  Broadivay.  N.  Y. 


WILFRIjDCUMBERMEDE, 


GEORGE     MACDONALD, 

Author   of   "Alec   Forbes,''    " A/inah   of  a  Quiet  NeigMorAood," 
^^ Robert  Falconer,''''  tSx^c,  <Sr-r. 

Complete  in  One  Vol.  12mo,  with  14  full-page  illustrations,  Cloth,  $1.75. 


Wilfrid  Cumbermbde  is  the  latest  and  ripest  work  of  one  who  is  now  acknowledged, 
by  a  large  and  constantly  increasing  public,  to  be  the  greatest  living  master  of  ficlion| 
equalh'iig  DicktiNs  in  his  vivid  depiction  of  character,  glorious  in  imagination,  and  intense 
in  religious  fervor. 

WiLFNiD  CuMBEHMEDE  is  absorbingly  interesting  in  plot,  full  of  adventure,  pure  and 
strong  in  every  point  of  incident  and  style,  and  written  with  a  power  which  places  it  entirely 
by  itself  among  the  novels  of  the  day. 

CRITICAL     NOTICES. 

"The  charms  and  value  of  Mr.  Macdonald's  work  need  not  be  sought.  They  present 
themselves  unasked  for,  in  the  tender  beauty  of  his  descriptions,  whether  of  nature  or  life 
and  character,  in  his  almost  superhuman  insight  into  the  workings  of  the  human  heart,  and 
in  his  unceasing  fertility  of  thought  and  happy  exactitude  of  illustration." — London  Pall 
Mall  Gazette. 

"This  book  is  full  of  intellectual  wealth.  It  will  teach  us  as  many  wise  thoughts,  and 
nurture  as  many  noble  feelings,  as  either  '  Robert  Falconer '  or  'Alec  Forbes.'  " — Sriiish 
Quarterly  Review. 

"It  is  simple,  natural,  pathetic,  and  playful  by  turns,  interesting  in  plot  and  develop- 
ment of  character,  and  written  in  such  limpid  English  as  it  does  one  good  to  meet  with." 

N.  Y.  Jourunl  of  Commerce. 

"Alter  all,  the  supreme  interest  of  Macdonald's  novels  is  found,  neither  in  the  deline- 
ation of  character  nor  in   the  narration  of  incident,   but  in   the  personality  of  the  writer 

revealed  everywhere  in  lofty  or  subtle  thought,  in  noble  sentiment,  and  in  lovely  feeling." 

Boston  Daily  rranscri/>t. 

"The  best  story  of  him  who  is  the  best  of  livin^^  story-writers.  It  maybe  enjoyed 
almost  in  perfection  by  one  who  has  not  read  the  beginning,  and  who  will  never  read  the 
sequel  ;  and  it  will  remain  in  the  memory  like  a  beautiful  song." — A'.  Y.  liide/iendeKt. 

"  Mr.  Macdonald's  writings  are  beautilul  in  style,  powerful  in  description,  patlietic  and 
pure  in  their  design." — Christian  Intelligencer. 


WITHIN  AND  WITHOUT. 

BY 

GEORGE    MACDONALD. 

One  vol.  i2mo.     $1.50. 

This,  which  is  the  longest  poem  and  one  of  the  most  important  works  of  this  popular 
author,  is.  in  fact,  a  Tlirillitxj  Story  in    t'erso. 

It  deals  in  a  graphic  and  masterly  manner  with  the  deepest  human  passion,  is  beautiful 
with  iina;;inatio!i,  and  intensely  interesting  in  plot.  Macdonald  is  one  of  the  most  original 
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Jo&iFff s  HialogoFS  of  JPlato. 

♦- 

THE  DIALOGUES  OF  PLATO. 

Translated  mto  English,  with  Analysis  and  Introductions,  by  B.  JowETT, 

M.A.,  Master  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  and 

Regius  Professor  of  Greek. 

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CRITICAL  ESTIMATES. 

From  the  New  York  Tribune. 

The  present  work  of  Proressor  Jowett  will  be  welcomed  wilh  profoiind  interest  as 
the  only  adequate  endeavor  to  transport  the  most  precious  monument  of  Grecian  thought 
among  the  familiar  treasures  of  Knglish  literature.  The  noble  reputation  of  Professor 
Jowett  both  as  a  thinker  and  a  scholar,  it  may  be  premised,  however,  is  a  valid  guaranty 
for  the  excellence  of  his  performance.  He  is  known  as  one  of  the  most  hard-working  stu- 
dents of  the  English  imiversities,  in  the  departments  of  philology  and  criticism,  whose  ex- 
emplary diligence  is  fully  equalled  by  his  singular  aciitcness  of  penetration,  his  clear  and 
temperate  judgment,  and  his  rare  and  absolute  fidelity  to  the  inierests  of  truth.  Holding 
a  distinguished  official  place  in  English  letters,  no  man  exhibits  less  of  the  pride  of  position, 
or  is  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  learning  with  greater  simplicity  of  purpose  and  an  »qual 
almost  child-like  sweetness  of  life.  A  devoted  adherent  of  the  Established  Church,  he  is 
free  from  ecclesiastical  prejudices.  Withojt  the  natural  passion  for  innovation  which  is  EO 
often  the  principal  spur  of  ardent  reformers,  he  has  stood  in  the  front  rank  of  the  advocates 
of  a  progressive  and  liberal  theology.  Of  retired  and  gentle  habits,  he  has  shrunk  from  no 
personal  sacrifice  when  a  great  crisis  has  demanded  .an  open  avowal  of  opinion  in  opposi- 
tion  to  worldly  and  conventional  interests.  15ut  the  peculiar  distinction  of  Professor  Jow- 
ett is  his  eminence  as  a  scholar,  especially  in  the  language  and  literature  of  ancient  Greece. 
Of  this  the  impress  is  stamped  on  the  pages  of  the  great  work  before  us.  Wilh  no  parado 
of  learning,  there  is  perpetual  evidence  of  profound  mastery  of  the  subject  :  the  case  and 
grace  with  which  the  matter  is  handled  comes  from  knowledge  that  is  an  habitual  posses- 
lion  of  the  mind,  and  not  prepared  for  the  occasion  ;  while  the  idiomatic  force  and  precision 


of  the  style  shows  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  resources  of  the  English  tongue. 
Tlie  pleasant  flow  of  the  language  makes  the  reading  of  the  translation  a  constant  enjoy- 
ment. We  do  not  know  the  theory  on  which  it  is  founded,  or  if  it  is  founded  on  any  theory 
at  all ;  but  it  is  certain  that,  apart  from  the  nature  of  the  topics  under  discussion,  and  the 
local  coloring  and  environment  of  the  scene,  there  is  little  to  remind  us  that  it  is  not  an  ori- 
ginal production  in  the  vernacular.  For  aught  that  is  here  indicated  to  the  contrary,  the 
bees  that  settled  on  Plato's  lips  might  as  well  have  swarmed  from  an  English  as  an  Attic 
hive. 

The  claims  of  Plato  to  the  study  and  admiration  of  thoughtful  inquirers  in  this  age 
of  experiment  and  analysis  repose  on  his  profound  exposition  of  the  ideas  which  lie  beyond 
the  domain  of  physic.il  research,  which  no  process  of  anatomy  or  chemistry  can  detect,  and 
which  are  revealed  only  in  the  universal  consciousness  of  humanity.  No  dissection  of  the 
brain,  no  tracing  of  the  subtle  threads  of  nervous  action,  no  demonstration  of  the  exquisite 
enginery  of  the  heart,  or  the  marvellous  courses  of  the  blood,  throws  the  faintest  light  on  the 
principle  of  justice,  the  sentiment  of  love,  the  obligations  of  duty,  the  aspirations  of  rever- 
ence, or,  in  one  word,  on  the  mystic  I'rinity  of  philosophy,  the  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the 
Good.  Of  this  sublime  evangel,  Plato  was  the  consecrated  apostle.  His  message  still 
finds  an  echo  in  the  soul  of  the  ages.  His  words  of  "  sweetness  and  light,"  of  moral 
beauty  and  intellectual  grace,  so  lovely  in  their  transparent  candor,  so  acute,  and  yet  so 
gentle,  so  masterly  in  logic,  and  yet  so  tender  in  emotion,  will  never  lose  their  significance 
and  power,  until  sensation  has  taken  the  place  of  ideas  in  the  consciousness  of  man. 


From  Blackwood's  Magazine. 

This  work  by  Professor  Jowett  is  one  of  the  most  splendid  and  valuable  gifts  to  Litera- 
ture and  Philosophy  that  have  for  a  long  time  been  offered.  Its  first  or  most  obvious  ex- 
cellence is  the  perfect  ease  and  grace  of  the  translation,  which  is  thoroughly  English,  and 
yet  entirely  exempt  from  any  phrase  or  feature  at  variance  with  the  Hellenic  character. 
Very  few  translations,  other  than  the  Kible,  read  like  an  original  :  but  this  is  one  of  them. 
It  has  other  and  more  recondite  excellences.  It  is  the  work,  almost  the  life  labor,  we 
believe,  of  a  profound  scholar,  a  thoughtful  moralist  and  metaphysician,  and  a  most  suc- 
cessful instructor  of  youth  ;  and  it  is  manifest  that  the  complete  success  that  has  attended 
his  execution  of  the  task  is  itself  the  means  ot  concealing  the  diligence,  industry,  and  abil- 
ity with  which  philological  and  interpretative  difficulties  must  have  been  .solved  or  over- 
come. It  is  a  great  matter,  even  for  the  best  scholars,  to  possess  such  a  guide  and  help  in 
the  study  of  the  original  ;  and  to  others,  desiroi:s  of  knowing  thoroughly  and  appreciating 
worthily  the  wise  thoughts  and  literary  beauties  of  one  of  the  greatest  writers  that  ever 
lived,  the  boon  is  inestimable.  The  Introductions  to  the  several  Dialogues  seem  to  be  ex- 
cellent, and  are  appropriately  directed  to  explain  the  point  of  view  which  the  great  Greek 
philosopher  occvipied,  and  to  point  out  the  fact  that  his  very  errors — and  we  think  some  of 
these  very  great — arose  out  of  his  keen  perception  of  evils  which  needed  a  remedy,  but 
which,  we  believe,  can  only  be  remedied  by  higher  influences  than  any  that  were  within 
reach  of  a  Pagan  Philosophy. 

Ralph  "Waldo  Emerson's  Estimate  of  Plato. 

Of  Plato  I  hesitate  to  speak,  lest  there  should  be  no  end.  Vou  find  in  him  that  which 
jx>u  have  already  found  in  Homer,  now  ripened  into  thought— the  poet  convened  into  a 
philosopher,  with  lufvicr  strains  of  musical  wisdom  than  Homer  reached  ;  as  if  Homer  were 
the  yoi.th,  and  Plato  the  finished  man  ;  yet  with  no  less  security  of  bold  and  perfect  song, 
when  he  cares  to  use  it,  and  with  some  harp-strings  fetched  from  a  higher  heaven.  He  con- 
tains the  future,  as  he  came  out  of  the  past.  In  Plato  you  explore  modern  Europe  in  its 
causes  and  seed — all  that  in  thought  which  the  history  of  Europe  embodies  or  has  yet  to 
embody.     The  well-informed  man  finds  himself  anticipated.     Plato  is  up  with  him  too. 


Nothing  has  escaped  him.  Every  new  crop  in  the  fertile  harvest  of  reform,  every  fresh  sug- 
gestion of  modern  humanity  is  there.  If  the  student  wishes  to  see  both  sides,  and  justice 
done  to  the  man  of  the  world,  pitiless  exposure  of  pedants,  and  the  supremacy  of  truth  and 
the  religious  sentiment,  he  shall  be  contented  also.  Why  should  not  young  men  be  edu- 
cated on  this  book?  It  would  suffice  for  the  tuition  of  the  race — to  test  their  understand- 
ing and  to  express  their  reason. 

From  the  British  Quarterly  Review. 

Professor  Jowett  has  accomplished  a  great  feat  in  giving  to  the  world  a  complete  Knglish 
translation  of  Plato's  "  Dialogues  ;"  for  it  certainly  is  no  small  matter  to  have  placed  Plato 
in  the  hands  of  all,  conveyed  in  language  divested,  as  far  as  possible,  of  mere  technicalities 
and  scholasticism,  and  put  in  a  form  equally  accessible  and  alluring  to  average  students  of 
ancient  or  modern  philosophy.  And  as  this  is  a  real  benefil  to  non-classical  readers,  so  the 
work  itself  is  a  real  translation,  in  so  far  as  nothing  is  intentionally  omitted.  We  have  the 
genuine  Platonic  dialogues  in  their  integrity,  without  foot-note  or  comment,  in  the  place  of 
the  e.xcerpts  or  extracts  which  the  naiure  of  Mr.  Grote's  great  work  rendered  necessary, 
and  of  the  occasional  and  somewhat  too  frequent  omissions  of  passages  in  T>r.  Whewell's 
equally  lawdablc,  but,  perhaps,  not  equally  successful,  endeavor  to  present  Plato — in  part, 
at  kast — in  a  popular  form  to  the  English  reader.  From  the  very  nature  of  Plato's  philoso- 
phy, w'>ich  is  to  a  considerable  extent  tentative  and  progressive,  and  which  is  constantly 
working  out  with  variations  the  same  leading  iders,  it  is  essential  to  the  English  student  to 
have  the  work  complete.  The  Republic,  of  which  an  excellent  version  by  Messrs.  Davies 
and  Vaugha  :  has  for  .some  time  been  before  the  world,  is  to  a  ccnsiderable  extent  a  risumt 
of  Plato's  earlier  views — an  epitome  of  Platonism,  in  fact  ;  but  a  student  may  know  the 
Republic  fairly  well,  and  yet  have  a  vast  deal  to  learn  from  such  dialogues  as  the  'J'ftexte- 
ius,  the  r/iilebus,  the  Parmenides,  the  Timceus — all  very  difficult  in  their  way  ;  or  from 
the  more  genial  Protagoras,  Phado,  and  Ceorgius ;  or  the  more  transcendental  and 
imaginative  I'hwdrus  and  Symposium,  which  last  may  be  called  the  most  fascinating  and 
brilliant  of  the  dialogues,  excepting  always  the  Republic  itself. 

Some  of  the  minor,  easier,  and  shorter  dialogues,  which  fall  within  the  range  of  aver- 
age school  reading — the  A(<ology,  the  Crito^  the  Meiiexenus,  the  Lysis,  the  Charmides, 
the  Ion — hardly  touch  the  Socratic  philosophy  in  its  deeper  sense  ;  they  are  genial  sketches 
of  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  wise  old  man,  or  deal  with  matters  distinct  from  dialectics  prop- 
erly so  called.  Very  little  of  Plato  proper  (so  to  speak)  will  be  learnt  from  these  alone. 
But  the  subtle  reasonings  of  Plato,  in  some  of  his  greater  works,  are  sufficiently  difficult  to 
make  cvei.  tlie  best  Greek  scholars  glad  to  have  occasional  recourse  to  studied  English  ver- 
sions, on  which  they  can  with  tolerable  confidence  rely. 


From  the  New  York  Nation. 

When  we  expressed  a  wish  that  some  attempt  might  be  made  to  popularize  Plato  for 
the  benefit  of  American  readers,  we  did  not  anticipate  that  an  important  step  towards  its 
fulfilment  was  so  near.  This  book  is,  as  Plato  himself  might  have  said,  a  veritable  ipixaXov, 
and  we  fondly  trust  that  no  important  public  library  will  long  be  without  it.  We  v/ish  we 
could  add  the  timn-honorcd  expression  about  "no  gendeman's  library,"  but  we  much  fear 
that  some  of  our  gentlemen  will  prefer  a  basket  of  champagne  (the  cost  of  the  two  commo- 
ditie.-,  l^ing  about  tlie  same)  to  such  a  "possession  forever"  as  Professor  Jowett's  Plato. 

The  work  is  remarkable  on  two  accounts.  It  is  the  only  complete  English  version  of  Plato 
exectited  by  a  single  translator.  Of  the  two  previous,  one  was  commenced  by  .Sydcnhatii 
and  finished  by  Taylor,  while  the  other  (in  I'ohn's  "  Classical  Scries")  is  the  production  of 
three  didTcrcnt  hands.  This  fact,  which  by  itself  would  only  prove  the  industry  and  per- 
severance of  the  writer,  is  complemented  by  his  thirty  years'  experience  in  1  reput-ition,  of 
*hich  experience  and  reputation  ^.e  cannot  hesitate  to  pronounce  the  book  worthy. 

'I'liis  ivork  scut  by  post  or  express,  charges  />niil,  on  receipt  of  the  price, 

SCRIBNER.  ARMSTRONG.  &  CO.  654  Broadzuaj,  N.  Y. 


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